
Front View of the Address. The Head Should Be 
Turned Slightly Away. 



GOLF 



FOR BEGINNERS — AND OTHERS 



BY 



MARSHALL WHITLATCH 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK 
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 

MCMX 






Copyright, 1910, by 
OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY 



Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 



All rights reserved 



C CI. A •? 6 1 - J 



INTRODUCTION 

"When I get very old and feeble and my joints 
creak and I begin to find croquet too strenuous 
a pastime, then I may take up golf." This was 
my answer to the first invitation I had to play 
this game. I felt that to ask me to take up a 
game suitable only for mollycoddles, as it then 
seemed to me, was asking too much; I, who had 
been intensely interested in athletic sports ever 
since I could remember — baseball, football, row- 
ing and what not. 

I can remember how my lip curled with disdain 
when I saw the red coats and knickerbockers. 

It was up in Connecticut, a few miles below 
New Haven, at a summering place called Wood- 
mont, that the above remarks were made, and it 
was to a young lady that they were addressed. 
However, I was inveigled into watching the 
game. We reached the first tee and she made a 
little mountain of sand about two inches high and 

5 



GOLF 

asked me to get a ball out of the pocket of the 
bag. I did it rather awkwardly, as the whole 
outfit was strange and I wasn't interested. I 
remember how critically I viewed the old Silver- 
town gutty ball as I took it out of the bag and 
bounded it on the bottom of one of the clubs to 
see whether it was lively or not. 

I handed it over and she put it on the mound 
of sand, which still further prejudiced me against 
the game and convinced me that there was no 
doubt of its being suitable for mollycoddles ; why, 
they didn't even give the ball a chance. In base- 
ball the ball had a look in; it took some skill to 
hit a ball in motion and still more if it had a curve 
and was coming fast. 

She took out a driver — she explained that was 
the name of the club selected — and then began a 
still further preliminary course of action in the 
nature of trial swings, shifting of grip, gage of 
wind, light, humidity, and doubtless a hundred 
other things, till I was thoroughly disgusted. If 
they did all that in order to hit a miserable little 
white pill on a mound they were carrying the 
thing to absurdity. 

6 



INTRODUCTION 

The young lady said nothing, but swung and 
hit the ball with a sharp clicking sound and we 
were off. The ball went about a hundred yards 
and had an inshoot. "Gee! see it curve!" I ex- 
claimed, and then she said in answer to my criti- 
cism that the ball didn't go very far for all the 
trouble she had taken: "I have been off my drive 
for over a week and have been slicing right along, 
but that was rather a fair drive, and I'll wager 
a box of candy that you cannot do as well." 

That was more than I could stand, and I took 
the candy against its equivalent in cigars. I 
took another ball out of the bag and asked if I 
could baby it up on a mound of sand as she had 
done. "Certainly." Well, I did. No foolish 
preliminaries for me. I swung at it with a force 
that would have sent a baseball over the outfield 
fence. My hat flew off, and I felt as though I 
had broken my collar-bone. My fingers tingled, 
and I was dizzy. Laughter brought me to my- 
self, and glancing at the mound of sand I saw 
that white, clean ball still resting there. That 
roused all the fury in me. I hated that ball then, 
and I have yet a lingering suspicion of all balls, 

7 



GOLF 

and am always on my guard in their presence. I 
had lost my bet, and the remark that "It isn't 
as easy as it looks" only added to my discom- 
fiture. 

Ha! thought I, it's a game of wits. I had bet- 
ter see how the trouble had happened, and I 
walked away from the ball, as she had done, and 
took a more cautious swing at a blade of grass. 
Missed that, too. Saw the trouble now, and hit 
the grass next time. Now I could hit the ball. 
I swung good and hard and reached for it and 
connected. That drive was my undoing. The 
feel of the club sinking through that ball and the 
way that ball traveled sent a thrill through me 
that I'll never forget. 

That was ten years ago, and what time I could 
spare from business since has been spent on the 
links. Rain, snow, or sunshine, I have had more 
genuine pleasure at the game and met more fine 
fellows than at all other sports combined; I felt 
very far indeed from being a mollycoddle, and I 
think there are enough converts already to justify 
us in calling golf the national business men's 
game. 

8 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. Balance the Foundation of Golf 15 

II. Getting the Power Into the Ball 35 

III. Looking at the Ball 43 

IV. The Follow Through 53 

V. Fundamentals of the Swing 67 

VI. Accuracy — Not Distance 77 

VII. Getting the Ball Up . . 89 

VIII. Making the Swing 105 

IX. Making the Swing (Continued) 119 

X. Ease Rather Than Effort 133 

XI. The Part the Body Plays 155 

XII. The Vardon Grip 165 

XIII. Playing the Cleek 175 

XIV. The Midiron Shot 211 

XV. What You Can Do With the Midiron .... 223 

XVI. Use of the Mashie 239 

XVII. With Jigger and Niblick 257 

XVIII. On the Putting Green .... > :«'••-• 271 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Front view of the Address. The head should be turned 

slightly away Frontispiece " 

Top of Swing for the Driver or Brassey . . Facing page 18 * 

Following Through in the Drive 28 >' 

In the Lower Part of the Swing the Club Head is moving 
in a very Flat Arc 38 

The blurred image of the ball shows that it does not rise at 
a very acute angle. (See Page 73) 48 

The position of the hands shows how long the effort is con- 
tinued to keep the club head against the ball . . . 58 

Side view of the Address. Note how low the hands are held 
and also the incline of body. (See Page 106) ... 68 

At the moment of striking the ball 78 

Shows the relative positions of club head and hands at the 

moment of striking the ball 84 ^ 

Finish of Stroke. The incline of the body is the same as in 

the address and at the top of the swing 92-'' 

Imagine the club head moving rapidly and note how slowly 
the shoulders must move in proportion 100 

The Address from overhead, showing angles and lines of mo- 
tion as they appear to the one driving. (See Page 99) . 110 

It is a mistake for older men to address the ball as though 

they were trying to aim along the shaft 120 ' 

This is an easier way for older men to address the ball . . 134 

Bird's-eye view of the finish of the swing 144 

First stage of the Vardon Grip 166 

The Vardon Grip completed 166 

Top of the swing for a full Cleek shot ....... 176 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Address with mid-iron or cleek for the " picked " shot . . 184 v 
Address with mid-iron or cleek for the squeeze shot. Note 
that the lowest point in the swing will be ahead of the 
ball 192 l 

Follow through with the cleek, using the squeeze shot. (See 
Page 193) 200 

Address for the running up shot with the mid-iron . . . 224 

Top of swing for running up shot with the mid-iron. The 
club is dragged forward rather than pivoted at the wrists 
and comes down mostly of its own weight 224 

Striking the ball in running up shot with mid-iron. The 
effort is made downward and the club does the work . 224 

Finish of running up shot with mid-iron. Note that the toe 
of the club is pointing up 224 

Address with the mashie for the squeeze shot. The lowest 
point in the swing is opposite the pivotal center and 
ahead of the ball 240 

Address with mashie for squeeze shot. Note that the lowest 
point in the swing will be ahead of the ball .... 246 

Address with mashie for "picked" shot . 252 

Address with niblick for squeeze shot 264 

Following through in the high pitch shot with niblick. Keep 

the eyes on the ground 264 

Using the niblick in a bunker. Play the sand rather than 
the ball 264 

The high-pitched shot with the niblick. Don't be afraid, to 
bend the shaft 264 

A way of putting which, helps the player relax • * «' . 272 



BALANCE THE FOUNDATION OF 

GOLF 



GOLF 



CHAPTER I 

BALANCE THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

GOLF hit me hard at the start. I had the 
fever as thoroughly as one could get it. 
I talked golf when I could and I 
dreamed golf when I could not talk it. Every- 
one I saw with a golf bag seemed a personal 
friend of mine. 

I had only one day a week when I could play, 
as my business did not allow of any other time, 
but at odd moments I pored over Vardon's ar- 
ticles in the golfing papers and also Taylor's. 
Vardon was making his memorable trip through 
the country that year and I knew every wrinkle 
on his hand, as far as one could learn from photo- 
graphs. I had only Vardon clubs, an enterpris- 
ing maker having put out a line with his name 

15 



GOLE 

on them. I bought all the papers which pub- 
lished golfing news and knew Vardon's every, 
move. I marveled at his skill, as many; a golfer 
has done. 

If I could play; golf but once a week, that 
didn't prevent my practicing at home — nearly 
every evening I went out in the kitchen after 
the maid had gone upstairs and I was at it. I 
had the photographs of great players on the 
kitchen table, and I was sure I was doing every- 
thing according to the book. I committed all the 
instructions for playing to memory and was dead 
certain I observed them all. Hour after hour I 
went through this practice, but when I got out 
on the links my finely-trained strokes wouldn't 
work. Mornings I would be beaten invariably. 
Afternoons I would give up form and get there 
any old way. I always did better afternoons. 

During the following week when I got home 
at night from business I would start all over 
again to reconstruct my theories and develop 
form. Form was the only way to become a 
golfer. I made up my mind that I would culti- 
vate the correct way to play if I never won a 

16 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

match. I persisted for over two years in this 
endeavor, with but a slight improvement in my 
game. The fellows I played with, who took up 
golf at the same time I did, were allowing me 
four and five strokes, and I was discouraged. 

Finally I decided to discontinue trying to fol- 
low others and build up a method of my own, 
founded on sound mechanical principles. I was 
always a good mechanic, and the same application 
to my own ideas that I had given to others began 
to show in my play. My game steadied and my 
improvement was regular. I was on the same 
handicap basis as my friends in a few months, 
playing only when they did. In the fall I con- 
ceded three strokes to them. I have been im- 
proving ever since. 

I really believe that the time spent in trying to 
copy any one's style or in any way trying to 
play imitatively is wasted. To be coached by a 
professional will sometimes help in calling atten- 
tion to a fault which the player has unconsciously 
developed and to have him furnish suggestions 
which may tend to make the playing of certain 
shots easier I think is a good idea. In such cases 

17 



GOLF 

go only to a first-rate player, and instead of hav- 
ing him stand by and watch you try to develop 
a swing or cultivate form in sixty minutes, get 
him to show you the principles or explain the 
less obvious shots such as playing out of long 
grass, sand, mud, and water. There is a knack 
about playing shots of this kind which it would 
take endless time to learn without help or a sug- 
gestion from some one who understands them. 

In the case of young folks in their teens I 
consider that they have the imitative faculty so 
strong that if a really fine professional takes hold 
of them when they start he will make golfers of 
them. For the average person, however, I doubt 
if anything but playing the game itself will ever 
be of advantage. No two people will ever swing 
at a ball in the same way. Each one develops a 
different set of muscles, due to his environment, 
and a method of playing golf used by one man 
who has developed one set of muscles and is 
naturally strong in them would be of no value 
to another player who has not developed that set. 
Golf is essentially individual ; let any one hit on a 
method of playing that will produce results and 

18 




:« 



■*[r Z* : **\ 






1 SB^liM iiP. * 



Top of Swing for the Driver or Brassey. 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

become sufficiently skilful, immediately a new 
school is started. 

The first step of all is to decide just what you 
want to do and refuse to be persuaded to change 
your method every time you find yourself off 
your game. It is my purpose in this book to call 
attention to those things which, no matter what 
your form or method may be, must be observed 
in making a stroke, as they are fundamental 
principles. Much confusion arises in the mind 
of a beginner from the endless list of instruction 
regarding the grip of the hands, the position of 
the feet, the position of the ball, and the style 
and weight of clubs, length of shafts, keeping 
the eye on the ball, following through, and what 
not. I have tried conscientiously to think of six 
or eight things at once in endeavoring to play a 
shot, and it cannot be done. It requires intense 
concentration for just an instant in golf to make 
a stroke successfully, and the thing to do is to 
determine just what you must concentrate on and 
stick to that. 

My object in this chapter is to bring out what 
I consider the foundation of a stroke with any 

19 



GOLF 

club, and that is the matter of balance. As any 
part of the stroke, no matter whether it is the grip 
of the hands, the turn of the wrists, or any of 
the details which compose a swing, is rendered 
of no value if the player loses his balance in the 
delivery of the stroke, I think no one can 
gainsay that balance or equilibrium, or center of 
gravity (call it what you will), is the more im- 
portant. A stroke may be partly saved by a 
heroic effort sometimes, but no properly played 
stroke is ever made when the balance is not main- 
tained throughout the swing. 

To keep one's balance may seem simple enough, 
and the majority of golfers will say that they 
do. True, indeed, they do; they waste the ma- 
jority of the effort of their swing in doing it. 
Comparatively little of the energy expended goes 
into the ball; most of it goes into a death grip 
on the club, one leg trying to maintain the bal- 
ance which the other leg is trying to disturb, a 
stiffening of the arms, shoulders and countless 
other losses, and a wild endeavor as the club nears 
the ball to throw everything into it and get the 
ball away anyhow. When the ball is struck the 

20 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

instinctive effort is to restore the equilibrium by 
pulling in the arms in order to keep from f ailing 
over. Every beginner I ever saw had to be 
warned to go at it easier. Now if the experience 
of all good players agrees that this is so, be 
sensible and at least consider what they say. All 
golf wisdom boiled down will only teach you to 
"master yourself." 

That is where golf is so peculiar. This is the 
real foundation of golf, but I despair of ever 
putting that clearly enough before any one to 
have him understand it, so I start with the matter 
of balance, presuming that it is useless at the 
outset to try to bring out the philosophy of golf. 
That will be learned in what some one has called 
"the seven years it takes to become a golfer." 

Few experienced golfers will deny that a little 
energy well directed and smoothly applied will 
drive the ball farther than a more vigorous effort 
which does not connect the ball and the center 
of the club. The more easily the balance is pre- 
served, the more freedom you will have for the 
making of the stroke. If you can devise some 
way of keeping your head in one spot, by that I 

21 



GOLF 

mean not swaying the head, your eyes will be 
able to see the ball (the object to be struck) 
clearly. To illustrate what I mean by keeping 
the head in one spot : 

You will remember that when you have your 
photograph taken in a gallery the photographer 
places a rest back of your head, with a couple of 
prongs on it, to keep your head from swaying 
to the right or left, or up and down. Your 
head occupies one spot or position with reference 
to the camera. If the man jars the camera so 
that it sways during the exposure of the plate 
the image will be blurred, more than when you 
sway your head. Now, then, if your eye repre- 
sents the camera and the ball the image, the more 
successful you become in keeping your head in 
one spot the better chance you have of seeing the 
ball clearly. No matter what method you use, 
this one thing must be mastered if you ever ex- 
pect to play golf well. Certainly anything which 
tends to destroy your balance will make it im- 
possible to see the ball clearly, and you cannot 
do this if your head moves from the spot you 
started from. 

22 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

You will find from experience that you cannot 
keep your head in one spot if you stiffen your 
muscles in any way. Keep your mind on keep- 
ing your head in one spot, as I have described, 
and you will correct a hundred errors into which 
you would otherwise drift. It will make you 
loosen up unconsciously. It will prevent you 
from making any sudden exertion which would 
tend to destroy your balance and thereby make 
your head sway. It will cause you to finish the 
stroke smoothly, naturally and easily, and thus 
prevent slicing, because you will not have to draw 
in your hands to restore your balance, as you 
will not lose it. 

Regardless of how much you perfect your 
style, you cannot develop any method which will 
not require you to keep the head still so that you 
can see your ball clearly. It is worthy of notice 
that I have never seen any first-class player or 
even a good player who did not observe this 
fundamental principle, and there are endless 
methods of swinging at a ball. Jerome D. 
Travers told me on his return from the West 
after winning his first national championship, 

23 



GOLF 

in answer to my question as to what particular 
thing he kept his mind on most during his 
matches, that he kept repeating to himself as he 
walked up to the ball at each shot, "Keep your 
head still," "Keep your head still." This con- 
vinced me that it was the most important thing 
to be observed, and I can say that my improve- 
ment was more rapid after I began to master 
this one item than as a result of all other details 
put together. Now when I make a poor shot I 
put my entire attention on the next stroke to 
keeping my head still, and I find it gives the 
desired result. 

You cannot play "hard" and observe this fun- 
damental rule. When you stand with your legs 
spread rigidly apart and the muscles braced for 
the effort of your stroke, you will find at the very 
first attempt to draw your club back from the 
ball that unless you relax the muscles your head 
will move. Stand in front of your mirror, or, 
if out-doors, stand so that your shadow is cast 
toward the ball in front of you, and you will 
find that the muscles all over the body, with the 
exception of those which hold the head in position, 

24 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

must be relaxed or you cannot keep the head still 
when you are making your stroke. Allow this 
fact to sink into your mind and absorb it thor- 
oughly, and then you will find that many of your 
faults will disappear. 

From the foregoing it is obvious that it will 
be next to impossible to introduce a jerk or a 
sudden violent effort into any part of the swing 
without disturbing the balance or moving the 
head. You cannot jerk the club away from the 
ball and keep the head still; you cannot swing 
back too far, or too short, or any way other than 
is natural to your particular physique. No two 
persons have the same frame or type of muscles 
or equal physical development, and it is useless 
to try to give any rule for these details. Work 
them out for yourself, but the keeping of the 
head in one position is the base upon which you 
must start, because that is the only way you can 
see the ball clearly. 

If your head is still, you see your ball clearly 
and can not fail to turn your hands at the right 
instant. You will find that you can not grip 
your club in the wrong way without introducing 

25 



GOLF 

at some point in the swing a factor which will 
disturb your balance and make your head sway. 
You can not keep your balance at the finish of 
your swing without following through correctly. 
If the player will keep in mind this very im- 
portant fact, and will govern his effort by his 
ability to keep his head still, he will readily work 
out for himself ways and means for accomplish- 
ing the desired result, and I believe that the 
average business man with the average physique 
is as capable of first-class golf as any youngster 
if he can acquire the right mental foundation 
upon which to build. Golf is mostly mental and 
players improve more from a correct grasp of 
the fundamentals than they do from merely 
playing around the course. 

I want to drive home the fact that this is abso- 
lutely essential. Even though in trying to do 
it players may find they go off their game tem- 
porarily, they should realize that they never will 
learn to play well unless they have the courage 
to persist in acquiring a method which their com- 
mon sense should tell them is the only way they 
can be sure of hitting the ball accurately. 

26 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

You need have no fears of overswinging if 
your mind is concentrated on your balance or the 
position of the head, as you cannot possibly over- 
swing and keep it still. You cannot jerk your 
club away without altering the position of your 
head. You cannot introduce too much effort at 
any one point and be successful. It will govern 
the extent of your follow through. It will take 
the stiffness out of your swing, and one thing 
that it especially accomplishes is to give that 
smooth, even rhythm to the swing, which does 
the work. It will give you the fine finish, which 
offers the least chance for a slice or a pull. In 
fact, it is the cure-all of a host of golfing errors. 

Don't think because I have called attention to 
this important fact that you will be able to accom- 
plish it in a week. It can't put you off your 
game if you go at it patiently and easily. You 
will find it very difficult at first to keep your 
head absolutely still. Don't compromise with 
yourself when you begin to improve; keep at it 
and fix your mind on acquiring the knack thor- 
oughly and you have laid the foundation for real 
first-class golf. 

21 



GOLF 

The great fault of all golfers, the root of all 
golfing errors, is the desire to swing hard. For 
the benefit of those who cannot master them- 
selves sufficiently to swing easily and freely at 
the ball, I desire to make the following pertinent 
observation. The closer you bring your feet 
together the more you reduce your physical abil- 
ity to swing hard. If you brace yourself, you 
are bound to use too much effort. Relax, and 
you will not. It is only the expert who can take 
a wide, open stance and swing easily. 

It would seem a commonplace to say that it is 
far easier to maintain the balance on two legs 
than on one and yet most golfers fail to realize 
this and adapt the idea to their method. I desire 
to call especial attention to the fact that in try- 
ing to imitate a good player the vast majority of 
beginners seem to have an idea that he throws 
his weight first on the right leg and then on 
the left. In my opinion this idea or mental pic- 
ture is one thing which makes for rigidity in the 
swing and right from the start seriously handi- 
caps the player in his effort to develop a correct 
swing; as the majority of people go along the 

28 






< - . v*\ V 



J ^ 




Following Through in the Drive. 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

lines of least resistance they never develop the 
proper way. 

I know that to the uninitiated a good player 
seems to make such a shift of weight from one leg 
to another, but he really does not. If he did his 
head would move. It would have to move. 
His head stays still and his body moves, but 
the center of gravity remains in the same 
place, constant. I think it is the idea of most 
beginners when they are told to shift their 
weight that they must shift the center of gravity ; 
I know that is what I understood. So long as 
you have both feet on the ground in approxi- 
mately the same position as when you start and 
you keep your head still, you will not change 
your center of gravity. The speed of the club 
is gained purely from a twist of the body and 
any method which depends upon a shifting of 
the weight or center of gravity (call it what 
you will) is to my mind extremely hazardous and 
unreliable. 

If I am correct in my statement that the weight 
or center of gravity should not change, the whole 
scheme can be simplified by studying out some 

29 



GOLF 

way of acquiring speed and power by the twist 
of the body and shoulders. It being evident that 
the feet or foundation must be kept in approxi- 
mately the same position from start to finish in 
order to maintain the center of gravity constant, 
as in that way only can the head be kept still, 
the next step is to find out how you can exert 
the greatest muscular force to advantage while 
making your club travel along the line you desire 
to send the ball. 

In the photograph showing the position imme- 
diately after striking the ball it is apparent that 
the legs play but little part in my stroke after I 
reach my ball and yet at the top of my swing, 
which you can see by reference to another illus- 
tration, you will observe that they have every 
appearance of exerting considerable power. 
They do, but it is very slowly applied, because 
the body should not return to the position assumed 
in the address until the club head reaches the ball, 
and that takes more time than players realize. 
Jumping at the ball destroys the whole founda- 
tion of the position held by the body with refer- 
ence to the ball, and a sudden or extra effort 

30 



THE FOUNDATION OF GOLF 

made with either leg, or both, will cause your 
head to move so that you do not see the ball 
clearly and you change the position of the pivotal 
center with relation to the ball. 

The speed with which, as well as the manner 
in which, you can utilize the power of the legs will 
be governed by your ability to keep the head ab- 
solutely still. In my own case I find that I am 
not conscious of any effort made with the legs 
at all ; apparently I use them principally to keep 
the tilt of the body constant. At any rate, it is 
plain from the photograph that my weight is well 
supported on the flat of my feet when I connect 
with the ball, and as in boxing, a blow delivered 
with the weight firmly planted on both feet has 
the greater power. 

By observing the left arm you will see that it 
is in line with the club shaft. That should be 
evidence that the left arm is not applying power 
but is merely guiding the club. It will be seen 
from the photograph also that my head is still 
pointed at the spot upon which the ball rested, 
and I keep it there in order that the pivotal cen- 
ter will remain constant until the ball has left the 

31 



GOLF 

club head. I then look up to see where my ball 
goes, and not before. 

Many players keep their heads still until the 
instant before they connect with their ball and 
then they relax to get a heave which spoils the 
whole thing. When you connect properly with 
your ball with your head perfectly still there 
should be a total lack of the feeling of power, 
as everything should go into the ball and not to 
disturbing the frame. Everything is so smooth 
when you go through your ball properly that you 
are conscious of very little effort. 

These two facts mastered thoroughly will do 
much to start you with a correct foundation upon 
which to develop a good game. The ability to 
hit the ball at all depends upon your being able 
to see what you are striking at and applying the 
power in a straight line during the time the club 
head is in contact with the ball is what governs 
your direction. 



32 



GETTING THE POWER INTO 
THE BALL 



CHAPTER II 

GETTING THE POWER INTO THE BALL 

WHEN you have learned how to hit the 
ball, the next thing in order is the 
amount of energy or power you can 
apply to it. It is only the energy which is trans- 
mitted to the ball that counts. Let us then ex- 
amine the different facts which confront us and 
determine their relative importance. 

In the first place we must remember that it is 
necessary to maintain the balance or the head will 
move so that we cannot see the ball clearly. The 
next is that as the face of the club is to be con- 
nected with the ball in a straight line we must 
endeavor in starting our swing to do nothing 
which will prevent our bringing the club back to 
the ball in the same way. The natural tendency 
of the beginner is to brace himself for the effort. 
Every one knows that the beginner does not play 
good golf. His method must be wrong then. 

35 



GOLF 

He is too stiff. It takes most golfers years to 
learn this simple fact, and they always have a 
lingering tendency to stiffen up. I know golfers 
who set themselves rigidly to start and unbend 
one muscle at a time till they have thought out 
each individual step in the process. They remind 
one of a mechanical toy playing golf. 

If you will take a club in your hand and start 
your back swing easily and naturally, direct- 
ing your attention to observing when your head 
starts to sway, you will find that it happens at 
the instant when you stiffen a single muscle. The 
slightest tendency to stiffen will instantly destroy 
the balance. It is well worth your while to con- 
vince yourself that this is so. 

Many players can make a perfect practice 
swing, and yet the moment the ball is in front 
of them they swing in an entirely different man- 
ner. This is because in the trial swing the eye 
has no responsibility and the player allows the 
club to go where it will. The eye should observe 
in golf and not direct the lines of force or angles. 
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred beginners 
unconsciously try to bring the lines along which 

36 



GETTING THE POWER 

the power is applied into the visible angles as 
interpreted by the eyes. In other words, the 
player is trying to see and direct everything as 
though he were shooting a rifle. 

It takes a number of years in golf to learn to 
"shoot from the hips" or waist, so to speak. The 
vast majority of beginners are up on their toes 
in applying the power, instead of being well down 
on the flat of the foot with the weight well 
grounded. This desire to "aim" at the ball along 
the shaft is the worst fault and the hardest to 
change or cure in the older players. It is not so 
much their age or muscular equipment which is at 
fault, but their lack of adaptability and dogged- 
ness in holding to their own way of playing. 
They assume at the start that they cannot get a 
long ball, and promptly devise ways and means to 
absolutely prevent their doing it. 

A lack of flexibility is a part of their natural 
equipment, but it should be their endeavor to 
overcome this handicap and not to intensify it. 
They start with a lack of distance with the in- 
evitable result that they get into trouble; then 
they acquire the habit of trying to lift the ball 

37 



GOLF 

over the trouble by hitting up instead of trying 
to get more distance. This results in a very high 
percentage of topped shots. 

The trouble with these older players is never 
lack of care, because they are a painstaking lot, 
but a lack of understanding of the principles of 
the stroke. They start by reaching out farther 
than the younger man as a rule, making it more 
difficult to maintain the balance and requiring 
considerable muscular effort to keep their feet 
when they swing. This eliminates the compact- 
ness which comes from one set of muscles sup- 
porting the other. Then they lower their heads 
to get a better aim along the shaft, thus bringing 
more directly in the line of vision a lot of moving 
objects, which tends to distract the attention when 
they are on their downward swing. 

Instead of reaching the top of the swing com- 
fortably they expend most of their energy in 
keeping their balance, and in the great majority 
of cases they make all their effort in one violent 
heave as they reach the ball. The eyes are about 
a foot above the real pivotal center of the stroke, 
and consequently everything should appear more 

38 



GETTING THE POWER 

or less flat to the player in a properly played 
stroke. In other words, the base or pivot of the 
stroke should really appear to be behind him and 
not in a line between the eyes and the ball. 

The player must depend more upon the "feel" 
of the shot ; that is to say, his sense of touch must 
be cultivated more, and he must depend upon his 
vision rather as a check on the "feel" of the shot 
than as a guide to making it. Constant practice 
will give a player this "feel" of the shot, while 
observation will show him how to make his allow- 
ances for the way the shot looks, or the angles 
appear, when a shot is properly played. In a 
later chapter I show the stance or address I use 
on the drive, and while it looks wrong, I know 
from experience that it "feels right" and is right. 
I have proved it. I have learned to be guided 
more by the "feel" than by the "view." 

I think it is the constant antagonism between 
the eyes and the sense of touch, or feeling, which 
is influencing the reason which causes the con- 
scious muscular control and holds back the in- 
stinctive or natural muscular action, thereby in- 
creasing the difficulty of falling naturally into 

39 



GOLF 

the stroke. In practical language this means 
that it will be far more profitable for the aver- 
age golfer to observe the simple formula of keep- 
ing his head still and making his club head go 
along a straight line while in contact with the 
ball than to try to work out all the difficult angles 
and confusing details in the making of a stroke. 
These two simple rules will fill the bill if they are 
given a chance. 



40 



LOOKING AT THE BALL 



CHAPTER III 

LOOKING AT THE BALL 

WE now come to the point of supreme 
importance in golf, and that is look- 
ing at the ball. I presume that my; 
statement that there is perhaps one golfer in a 
hundred who knows how to look at a ball, will 
cause many smiles, yet that is an exact fact. 
About one golfer in ten stands perfectly still in 
addressing his ball and really concentrates his 
attention on seeing the ball clearly. Most of the 
time is spent in a hasty glance in the direction it 
is proposed to drive and back again to the ball, 
before focusing the eyes on that point. The club 
is being waggled over the ball with the head 
swaying as the weight is seesawed from one leg 
to the other and then before the eyes have been 
able to focus clearly upon the ball the attempt 
is made to hit it. 

Golfers as a rule are superficial and too com- 

43 



GOLF 

placent to come to a realizing sense of their faults. 
They really believe that they do not need to be 
told so simple a thing as to stand still and look 
at their ball steadily and clearly in order that 
they can see it properly, and yet the number 
who can do that is mighty small. The instant 
you shift your gaze on the ball during any part 
of the swing, that instant you invite disaster. 
More golfers hit their ball in spite of, and not 
because of, the way they look at it than is real- 
ized. 

It is purely a lack of concentration that is re- 
sponsible for most golfing errors, and it is of 
the very greatest importance that, as the mind 
can concentrate upon but one thing at a time, 
it should be the most important thing to which 
you devote your entire ability. I have shown 
that to be keeping the head still. In that way 
only can you look at the ball properly. In that 
way only can you see the ball clearly. The only 
time when you are really accomplishing that is 
when you can see the ball at every point in your 
swing, from start to finish, clearly. 

I have repeated some of my remarks, especially 

44 






LOOKING AT THE BALL 

that about keeping the head still, very often, and 
I might as well say here that it is the beginners 
I am aiming at. If they can really grasp this 
fact at the start, a year or two with even a small 
amount of practice will enable them to catch up 
with those who have started a year and two years 
before them who do not observe it. The tendency 
of most golfers is to drift into this habit or that, 
generally a compromise, due to the fact that it is 
not easy to accomplish a certain definite thing. 
For instance, if a player misses or tops or sclaffs 
a ball two or three times running, he immediately 
commences to hit at it harder and harder in the 
effort to get it away, instead of acknowledging 
his lack of care and skill in not hitting accurately 
and devoting his attention to a clearer view of his 
ball on the next shot and a less violent effort for 
distance. 

In looking at my ball I know, of course, from 
experience, what line my club will travel along, 
and when I start out for an afternoon's play 
I take a trial swing or two to see what my line 
is ; then I have the line fixed in my mind. I know 
from experience where the ball will go if I hit 

45 



GOLF 

it accurately. Before I draw my club away from 
the ball I turn my head very slightly by moving 
my chin to the right a couple of inches, while 
the top of the head inclines to the left. I do this 
for a variety of reasons. The first and most 
important is that it makes my head the last thing 
I have my mind on in starting my swing. The 
second is that it gives me more room for my left 
shoulder at the top of my swing, and there is no 
chance of the shoulder touching my chin sud- 
denly, thereby jarring my head and disturbing 
my view of the ball. The third reason is that it 
inclines the bulk of the weight of the head to the 
left, and as the head is very heavy it requires a 
little tension on the neck muscles to hold it in that 
position, and this tension retards any tendency 
to look away from the ball too soon. The fourth 
is that at the top of the swing the head is more 
nearly in the same position with reference to the 
shoulders as in addressing the ball and it relieves 
any stiffness and adds comfort to the position of 
the shoulders at this point. The fifth is that it 
brings the eyes to the upper left hand corner of 
their orbit, and is the limit beyond which they 

46 



LOOKING AT THE BALL 

cannot go even if anxiety to see where the ball 
is going should make the player want to look up. 
It is the best preventive measure I know. 

If the player has a fixed determination in his 
mind that from the top of his swing until he 
reaches the ball he will see his ball clearly it will 
effectually cure him of the faults of "hitting too 
soon" and "looking up too soon," the two worst 
faults in golf, because they involve a missed or 
topped or sclaffed ball. Slicing is a fault which 
can be allowed for, but a missed or topped or 
sclaffed ball will effectually put you out of the 
running. 

Fundamental in this matter of looking at the 
ball is its effect upon the confidence with which 
you play. Lack of confidence in golf is of 
many kinds, and it takes a long time to break 
oneself of the habit, for it is a habit. It is bred 
in the early stages and comes from sound causes, 
the chief of which is that you do not see the ball 
clearly. Naturally when you swing you are 
trusting to a very large extent to good fortune in 
connecting with the ball. When your game is 
based upon any other foundation than that of see- 

47 



GOLF 

ing your ball clearly, practice may make you more 
hopeful, and it is well to be optimistic in golf, 
but your confidence will vanish in a flash if you 
swing with care and yet miss your shot in an 
important match. On the other hand, if you have 
learned to keep your head still and look at the 
ball when you make your stroke, you will have 
developed a confidence in yourself, which is prop- 
erly founded, and nothing that your opponent 
can bring off will destroy your belief that you can 
match his shot and perhaps go him one better. 

You may be ever so nervous and eager to win 
your match, yet if you have the ability to con- 
centrate upon the one idea of seeing that ball 
clearly throughout the swing until your club 
reaches it, your confidence in yourself will remain 
unshaken and you will be bringing off your shots 
even though your knees are quivering with nerv- 
ousness. 

Take two players of equal ability, one with 
plenty of tournament experience and the other 
without, and the chances are much in favor of 
the player of experience, simply because the les- 
sons he has learned have been driven home harder. 

48 



, 




The Blurred Ima >e of the Ball Shows That It Does 
Not Rise at a Very Acute Angle. (See Page 73.) 



LOOKING AT THE BALL 

He knows from experience that anxiety to see 
the result of his shot has caused him to look up 
too soon and he is on his guard, while the other 
player has not had the lesson driven home by 
such a failure at a critical moment. 

The bulk of golfers I have met are successful 
business men, and I think they will average pretty 
much alike in their capacity to master themselves, 
but the difficulty is in properly impressing them 
with the importance of the fundamental prin- 
ciples. My experience is that the majority be- 
come bewildered in the maze of instructions they 
hear as to the playing of the game and they lose 
their sense of proportion, or that sense becomes 
dulled and their minds are concentrated upon the 
wrong thing. I don't care at what stage of the 
game a golfer may be, if he will limit his effort 
to his ability to see that ball clearly until he con- 
nects with it he will get his stroke away in pretty 
fair shape, and the first and most elementary 
thing in golf is to hit the ball. 

Every course is one mass of temptation and 
pitfalls for the unwary and every hole presents 
a new feature to take his mind from the essential 

49 



GOLF 

thing in golf, and that is that he must see his 
ball clearly to hit it accurately. 

Every kind of a he on the links is a temptation 
to divert the mind from the essential thing. No 
matter how badly your ball may be cupped, or 
in long grass, or on a down slope, or up slope, 
or with hazards in front of you, or around you, 
this one thing is the supreme factor in getting 
the ball away. Your opponent, lying dead to 
the hole, is the supreme temptation of all, but 
when you have once mastered the lesson of seeing 
your own ball clearly until you hit it, you will 
be able to smile to yourself when you walk up to 
your ball and say, "If you think that will make 
me look up, just wait." Mastery of this one 
item will pull many a hole "out of the fire" and 
save many a match which looks pretty desperate. 



50 



THE FOLLOW THROUGH 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FOLLOW THROUGH 

SOME years ago when I was an oarsman I 
learned that the arms have not a great 
amount of strength. The real strength 
of the body is in the heavy muscles of the shoul- 
ders, back, and thighs. In rowing, the arms 
merely guide the oars and move them in and out 
of the water. One of the first things a novice 
learns in rowing is that his arms are not much 
use for power. They tire too quickly. You 
cannot time the grip on the water properly if 
you use your arms to pull. 

The same thing is true of golf. It is the heavy 
muscles which do the real work. The arms should 
merely guide the club ; not exert the power. No- 
tice the criticism of the professional, "Get your 
back into it." Most beginners try to do all the 
work with their arms. If they had any such work 

53 



GOLF 

to do as in rowing the arms would tire so quickly; 
that they would be glad to shift the burden of 
the work to the muscles best able to stand it. 
There's the rub. They don't tire, and the con- 
sequence is that it takes years to learn to put 
the shoulders, back, and thighs into the stroke. 
That is what gives the distance. That is what 
takes the load from the arms and enables them 
to merely direct the power. The arms propelling 
the club and trying to pull the body around 
remind one of the "tail wagging the dog." The 
principle is wrong. The arms sweeping through 
the swing without the powerful muscles giving 
substance to the stroke prevent the various factors 
composing the swing from synchronizing. 

If, therefore, the player will realize where his 
greatest power lies he will be in a fair way to 
develop his method upon sound theories. It will 
enable him to avoid the spiteful, vicious jerk to 
get the ball away and rely more upon the steady, 
powerful sweep of the club to give him his dis- 
tance. There should be in the player's mind no 
desire or intention of "swatting" the ball; merely 
connect and keep up a steady, firm pressure^ 

54 



THE FOLLOW THROUGH 

You can then begin to press more firmly 
against the ball in order to keep the club head 
in contact with it for a longer time and this will 
not only increase your distance, but smooth out 
your whole stroke. There are very few players 
who do not have ample speed, but they fail to 
keep the pressure steadily against the ball until 
it rebounds from the club head. 

Many players have observed the fact that they 
can swing beautifully at the ground when they 
have no ball there, and yet they make a mess 
of the stroke when they attempt to strike the ball. 
Ninety times out of a hundred the practice swing 
is wrong for it is hard to tell when you are swing- 
ing correctly if you do not hit a ball. The ball 
shows how correctly you really do swing. As a 
general rule a practice swing is decidedly mislead- 
ing and is very apt to put you off as you accustom 
yourself to swinging with no opposition and the 
balance is entirely different. As the club goes 
through the air so fast, meeting with no resist- 
ance, it throws the timing of the effort off because 
the stroke is finished so much more quickly with 
no ball there. The player attempts, when he 

55 



GOLF 

swings at the ball, to get the same timing and it 
cannot be done. When the club head meets the 
ball there is a tremendous amount of drag applied 
to the speed of the swing, far more than is real- 
ized, and the habit of swinging hard is a great 
handicap. I know I took twenty-seven practice 
swings playing one hole in a match once and did 
not realize it until an enterprising reporter called 
my attention to it after the match. I have 
learned since and seldom take a practice swing 
now and when I do I swing very slowly. 

If your club was so heavy that it took your 
entire ability to swing it merely, you would de- 
pend principally upon the weight of the club to 
do the work of propelling the ball forward and 
would be satisfied to devote your entire attention 
to striking it accurately. If the ball was made 
of lead and was a little larger you would find that 
the shaft of your club would break because the 
weight of the club would not be sufficient to get 
the ball away quickly enough to transmit the 
strain from the shaft, and something would have 
to give. The ball would not give; it would be 
the shaft. The reason that the shaft does not 

56 



THE FOLLOW THROUGH 

break when you hit your ball is that unlike a 
leaden or iron ball your ball is made of rubber 
which is very elastic and yielding, much more so 
than the club head, and so the strain is taken up 
by the ball. 

Now the first effect of the blow is to transmit 
much energy to the ball, which is compressed 
partly and propelled forward partly, and if the 
power is not kept up or "followed through," as 
the saying is, the amount of power in the blow 
which made the ball collapse would be lost because 
the ball would spring back into shape again as 
soon as the club head ceased to be against it. But 
if the power is "followed through" properly so 
that the club head is still going forward and 
against the ball while the latter is springing back 
into shape a very considerable impetus is added. 

To illustrate the point of the spring back or 
rebound of the ball : if you were to throw the ball 
against a blanket hung on a line, the blanket 
would yield and the ball would drop straight 
down. If you were to stand a board up and 
throw the ball against it, the ball would rebound 
from it because the ball would be compressed and 

57 



GOLF 

would rebound from the board with as much 
speed as was used in compressing it less the 
amount of energy which the board took up. If 
you throw the ball against a stone wall it will 
spring back with great speed because the wall 
holds its position so firmly that practically all 
the energy which is used in making the ball col- 
lapse is returned in the ball upon the rebound. 

It is this principle which is lost sight of by 
most golfers. In order to get this rebound of 
the ball from the club head the power must be 
kept up and the club head pressed steadily against 
the ball until the latter has regained its shape; 
it is the firmness with which the pressure is main- 
tained rather than any heave or jerk to the swing 
which gives the distance. 

I consider that this elementary principle should 
be thoroughly understood, as it is this part of the 
game which is spoken of as "mental." A correct 
understanding of these basic principles has much 
to do with the way the player swings at his ball, 
and the fact that beginners do not "follow 
through" is proof that they do not understand 
this fact or their common sense would make them 

58 




The Position of the Haxds Shows How Long the Ef- 
fort Is Continued to Keep the Club Head 
Against the Ball. 



THE FOLLOW THROUGH 

observe it. If they grasp the idea correctly as 
I have shown, their own intelligence will insist on 
their maintaining a firm, steady pressure on the 
ball after the first impact. 

It is the player's mental conception of his stroke 
that is responsible for his way of playing, and 
that is something which he alone knows and which 
dictates his style. I have always hesitated to say 
anything a player does is wrong until I find out 
what his idea is in doing it. He may be making 
a very intelligent effort to play his stroke accord- 
ing to his understanding. If he is violating some 
basic principle the cure will not be found in mak- 
ing him swing differently, but in changing his 
mental picture of the stroke. If he can explain 
his purpose in swinging so and so, then I can 
grasp his idea, and if he is wrong show him why. 

In my own case I have found that my improve- 
ment has come more from correcting wrong the- 
ories of the stroke than from practicing on false 
premises. The theories of golf are not so diffi- 
cult that any man of average sense cannot under- 
stand them. One does not need to be an engineer 
to grasp the idea of the rebound of a rubber ball, 

59 



GOLF 

or that his head must be still to see a ball clearly. 

In order to bring out what takes place while 

the ball is in contact with the club head I have 

provided a diagram. The ball is shown in posi- 




tion A immediately before the club head reaches 
it in solid lines. The dotted lines show the club 
head in contact and at the point of greatest com- 
pression. In position B it is shown in a collapsed 
condition, the driver forward from the tee about 

60 



THE FOLLOW THROUGH 

half the width of the club head. It has taken 
considerable force to compress the ball, and this 
force will react the instant the ball starts from 
the tee, and as the shaft of the club has yielded to 
the blow, it will begin to straighten out as soon 
as the ball gains headway. This keeps the club 
head against the ball while the ball is returning 
to shape again. 

The instant the ball regains its shape, as shown 
in position C, it leaves the club head sharply; 
without any additional contact of any kind, be- 
cause it will at that instant travel with the speed 
of the club head plus the additional speed added 
by the spring back of the shaft and the rebound 
from being compressed. In other words, it will 
be traveling forward the instant it passes position 
C faster than the club head is traveling. 

If you will chalk the face of your driver and 
hit the ball clean you will find that it will leave 
the imprint of the bramble on the face about the 
size of a quarter. This proves it must collapse. 
If it collapses it must rebound. As the club 
head was traveling very fast when it first com- 
pressed the ball the rebound must be very rapid. 

61 



GOLF 

In order to get the full benefit of the rebound 
you must have the face of the club in contact with 
the ball. 

The first effect of meeting the ball is to bend 
the shaft because the head of the club is delayed 
by the contact. The shaft will stay bent, if the 
power is applied steadily, until the strength of 
the shaft has overcome the drag of the ball and 
straightens out again. This should make it feel, 
when the ball is correctly struck, as though the 
ball and club head were in contact for a couple 
of feet. The more limber the shaft the longer 
this contact seems to last. 

I have found from my own experience that 
I get an equally long ball with a "whippy" shaft 
and with a stiff one. I prefer a stiff shaft be- 
cause it wears longer, on account of the greater 
amount of wood in it, but I think that older 
players and those who do not naturally have a 
rapid swing should use the "whippy" shaft be- 
cause their slower swing is transmitted into speed 
by the whippy shaft when they maintain a 
steady pressure against the ball. A stiff er shaft 

62 



THE FOLLOW THROUGH 

moving slower will not keep the club head 
against the ball so well. 

These details, however, are refinements of the 
game and I suggest that the beginner give but 
little attention to them. 

If you apply all the power you are capable of 
before you connect with your ball you will lose a 
great deal of the rebound. Grasp this idea 
thoroughly and you will find it will take care of 
the "timing" of the stroke. The next time you 
go out to play just think of this matter of apply- 
ing your greatest effort after hitting the ball and 
it will astonish you how many things it will 
smooth out in your stroke, as well as the amount 
of distance you can obtain. It was undoubtedly 
the discovery of this fact that changed James 
Braid, the famous Scotch professional, from a 
very ordinary driver to one of the longest drivers 
in the world. 



63 



FUNDAMENTALS OF THE SWING 



CHAPTER V 

FUNDAMENTALS OF THE SWING 

THERE are two circles or sweeps which, 
merged together, form the swing. One 
is imparted by the twist of the body (I 
call that the horizontal sweep) and the other is 
imparted by the arms lifting the club up over the 
right shoulder; this I call the vertical sweep. 
I desire to call the player's attention to a few 
facts concerning them which may be a guide in 
understanding the functions of each. 

These two forces are the most important items 
in the stroke, and the mechanical problem they 
offer requires some nice calculation to work out 
properly in the player's mind. To begin with, 
I do not consider that many players realize the 
importance of the bearing of these two distinct 
forces upon the swing, and what the function of 
each is. As our pivot or center must remain 

67 



GOLF 

fixed in order that we may be able to see the 
ball clearly, as well as to have that pivot remain 
constant with reference to its distance from the 
ball, we must remember that the pivot is located 
between the shoulders, as it is through the shoul- 
ders and arms that the power is immediately 
transferred to the club. 

We will now consider the vertical swing or 
circle, for that is the one which causes the great- 
est amount of trouble to players, as it is the 
preponderance of it which results in pulling in 
the hands. To make this point perfectly clear I 
suggest that you try the following experiment: 
Address the ball in your usual manner and 
eliminate everything which does not pertain to 
a vertical swing in making your stroke ; that is to 
say, every item which has anything in the nature 
of a horizontal or parallel-with-the-ground move- 
ment. You will find that you will merely raise 
your club up over your head and bring it down 
again. If you will notice carefully you will 
observe that in order to keep from slapping the 
ground you will have to draw in your hands. 
You will observe that the club head goes out 

68 



FUNDAMENTALS OF THE SWING 

beyond the ball as you raise your club away from 
the ground, and you will also observe, on your 
downward swing, that the vertical sweep is 
making your club cut the line along which you 



t 



• 

/ 
/ 



/ 



• 



i 
I 

1 



• 






/ 



I 
I / 



/ 



* *s Y 



wish to send the ball, at right angles. To com- 
plete the vertical circle or swing you have to 
draw in your hands. 

As you are always drawing in your hands 
when you get a slice it is evident that the 
vertical swing has been delayed too long and is 

69 



GOLF 

predominating as you are nearing your ball. 

I have made a diagram for the purpose of 
illustration. Line A is the line along which it 
is desired to send the ball. By line B, I represent 
the dividing line which should govern the time 
of application of the two forces, the horizontal 
imparted by the twist of the body and the vertical 
imparted by the sweep of the arms in raising and 
lowering the club from the ground. 

From experience I have found that those 
players who do not practically complete their 
downward sweep before they reach line B have 
trouble with slicing because the force being ap- 
plied to bring the club head down to the ball in 
time is greater than that which is twisting the 
body around. The consequence is that there is 
more force being applied vertically than hori- 
zontally, and they must pull in the hands to hit 
the ball at all. The majority of beginners start 
their vertical swing too quickly in order to get the 
club up over their heads, and this results in their 
predisposing their minds in favor of finishing the 
vertical part of the swing last. A sliced ball is 
inevitable under these circumstances. 

70 



FUNDAMENTALS OF THE SWING 

There seems to be a peculiar construction of 
the mind which makes players return to the ball 
in the same way that they draw back from it, and 
if a step in the back swing is in its wrong order, 
that order will prevail on the downward swing. 
Any fault which is developed in the back swing 
is intensified on the downward swing because you 
are applying your maximum power at that 
time. 

The clubs are built to give the ball the proper 
angle of rise when you are swinging parallel with 
the ground. What a very small percentage of 
players get off a fine, low ball when they hit it! 
The majority seem to devote great care to get- 
ting their ball high in the air. In fact, I think 
that one of the commonest faults I see on the 
links is that of trying to get the ball up. 

Habits are easily developed in golf and hard 
to break. Every one will occasionally get a ball 
off right, but it is the average that counts. A 
great many of the experienced players will feel 
that they do not need to have their attention 
directed to this point, but if they were to get a 
strong sense of this fact they would be able to 

71 



GOLF 

add very materially to their distance and ac- 
curacy. For instance, if you will make the 
attempt to get off an unusually high drive you 
will find it will have a slice nine times out of 
ten. It is almost impossible to avoid it. 

As this point is one of the fundamental prin- 
ciples in golf I think it would be well for all 
players to consider carefully when they go off on 
a certain club to stop and see whether they are 
not trying to do the lifting instead of letting the 
club do the work. I know that in my own case 
it is one of the first things I think of when the 
suggestion of a slice appears in any of my shots. 

If players will give this serious attention they 
will find that it will be of the very greatest help 
to them in curing many of their troubles. 

The most prevalent cause of topped iron shots 
is not looking up, as most every one will tell you, 
but is the mental desire to get the ball up. 
With a desire to lift the ball, and not to leave 
that to the club which was built to do it, the 
player will unconsciously shift his pivotal center 
to the right of the ball, and in his downward 
swing the effort to avoid hitting the ground is 

72 



FUNDAMENTALS OF THE SWING 

bound to make him top in the majority of cases. 

The instant you shift the pivotal center your 
eye is the watchful guide which shows you your 
mistake, and it is practically impossible to avoid 
topping. If you have had the habit long enough 
you may have been able to make enough allow- 
ance for it in order to hit the ball, but you will 
be bound to get a slice, even if you don't top. 

When you realize what a small percentage of 
players really get good iron shots it may strike 
home if you will really try to take a fresh gage 
of your ball the next time you go out to play 
and see how low you can send your ball and how 
clear on the center of the club you can connect 
with it. This will probably do more to correct 
slicing with irons than anything I know of, and 
it applies equally to the wooden shots. 

In the photograph opposite page 48 will be seen 
a blurred image of the ball above the line of 
flight and to the right of the picture; you can 
see that it does not start off at a very acute angle. 
A perfectly hit ball with a driver should never 
rise over twenty to twenty-five feet above the 
ground, and on the average course with such a 

73 



GOLF 

drive you get about thirty to fifty yards roll, 
while the ball which goes high is not only at the 
mercy of the wind, but will be liable to kick off to 
the right or left very badly on rough ground. 



74 



ACCURACY— NOT DISTANCE 



CHAPTER VI 

ACCURACY — NOT DISTANCE 

THE two great faults of the majority of 
players are "hitting too soon" and "look- 
ing up too soon." The majority of pro- 
fessionals will tell you this. Now looking up is 
inevitable, and I always do it to see where my 
ball goes, but as I have not made my effort too 
soon I have applied the limit of my power to the 
stroke before I have any desire to look up. 
Those players who apply the power too soon 
cannot help looking up too soon. 

When you stop to consider the difference be- 
tween the good players and poor players you will 
quickly see that it is more in accuracy than in 
power. A well-made stroke conveys the idea of 
great power, and immediately the inexperienced 
makes a more violent effort to duplicate the dis- 
tance of the good player. I do not hesitate to 

77 



GOLF 

say that the vast majority of golfers expend 
more energy than they can control accurately. I 
know from experience that I have never yet 
taken out a friend to initiate into this game that 
he did not use twice as much energy as I did, and 
yet I always use the limit to which I can go and 
control it. Yet in spite of this statement, when 
I direct the player's attention to the fact that he 
is using more power than it is possible to con- 
trol, he keeps on making the same violent effort. 
I have seen players blister their hands badly on 
their first try at golf, and that generally means 
that the lesson is so painful that it is driven home, 
and the next time they go out they take it more 
easily. 

I am not hitting at the ball as hard to-day as 
I did on my first attempt to play. The increase 
in distance comes from increase in accuracy. 
My constant effort in studying the game is to 
find how much easier I can get the same distance 
and how much more I can control my direction. 
I never am bothered and no one will ever be 
bothered in not applying enough power. How, 

78 



ACCURACY— NOT DISTANCE 

then, can I drive this home in a practical manner 
to the player? 

It would seem as though a business man should 
understand figures, and I make the statement 
that about one per cent of golf shots are accu- 
rate, or approximately so. Yet players are con- 
tinually striving to add distance which reduces 
the chance of improving that one per cent. 
Players will go out on the course after reading 
this and find that they begin to get distance while 
their minds are on accuracy, and the lesson will be 
lost. They will immediately try to increase that 
distance by going back to the cause of a lack of 
it. You cannot be accurate if you are unable to 
see your ball clearly, and you cannot see it clearly 
if your head sways while you are making your 
stroke. You cannot make anything approach- 
ing a violent effort and keep your head still, and 
knowing this you have less than a quarter of one 
per cent of a chance to be master of your stroke 
if you are swinging so rapidly that you have not 
perfect control every instant during your 
swing. 

79 



GOLF 

I have called attention to the fact that if the 
club head is not moving along the line of flight 
while in contact with the ball, the ball cannot 
travel along that line, and that only is the thing 
to look for in your practice. Keep your head 
still and have your club head going straight when 
you meet the ball and you have nothing else to 
consider. The longer you can have your club 
head going along the line of flight the flatter 
will be your arc and the less the tendency to sclaff 
or top. 

Very few beginners can associate ease of effort 
and accuracy with a long ball. They feel that 
only a most violent effort will produce the long 
drive. Every time they swing they are making 
a much greater effort than the longest driver I 
know of. It is all wasted. They cannot be 
brought to see that it is accuracy and "timing" 
that do the work. If they do see the point they 
make no attempt to take practical advantage of 
it. My longest drives come off when I am not 
trying for anything but to put the ball down the 
line I am aiming at as true as I can. They sel- 
dom come if I am trying for distance. If you 

80 



ACCURACY— NOT DISTANCE 

desire to get an unusually long ball your mind 
must more than ever be directed for accuracy be- 
cause it will be harder to be accurate with a 
greater effort than you are accustomed to. It 
is also harder to keep the head still. 

The point where I find the average player falls 
down in his swing is with the shoulders and body. 
He invariably starts them too soon and too fast, 
and there is little chance of the hands being able 
to straighten the club in time. Wait until you 
can feel the drag of the club at the shoulders 
before you attempt to use them. Your club 
head must be around in position before you can 
feel the strain at the shoulders, and then you can 
move them as fast as you like. 

Take the photograph opposite page 48 and 
just imagine the club head moving at a good 
speed, and you will understand how slowly in 
proportion the shoulders should move. Now, if 
you will stop and consider that the right arm is 
bent at the elbow from the top of the swing until 
just as you get to your ball you will see that any 
sudden effort of the shoulders until both arms 
are straight will be wasted. 

81 



GOLF 

If the weapon was a heavy hammer it would 
not take long to get at the points which give the 
power. If you have ever seen a lumberman 
swing his ax at the base of a tree you can under- 
stand about the way he applies his power. By 
reference to the photograph you will grasp the 
idea of the speed with which I apply the body and 
shoulders to the stroke, if you can gage about 
what the woodman's speed would be with his ax. 
You would never find him looking away from the 
spot he wished to sink his ax into, and you would 
find that he w r ould never tire himself out by 
applying his power before the ax was in a posi- 
tion to take it. The idea is to get a gradually 
increasing speed until you connect with the ball, 
and then press steadily. The only difference be- 
tween you and the woodman is that you would 
throw yourself clean off your feet if you were to 
apply any such amount of power when you con- 
nect with the ball, as he uses in swinging an ax. 

I have had a great many players ask me how 
still they should keep their heads, even though I 
have tried to explain that it should be kept as 
still as though it were held in the one position 

82 



ACCURACY— NOT DISTANCE 

with a brace. An illustration I used which 
seemed to help one friend of mine was this: Im- 
agine that you had a glass of water balanced 
upon your head and you were trying to swing as 
hard as you could without spilling any of the 
water out of the glass, and you have a pretty 
fair idea of the way you have to swing to avoid 
moving your head. You would avoid making 
any particular effort at any one point in the 
swing, because it would jar the head. If any- 
thing in the nature of a jerk is introduced any- 
where in the swing it is a sign that you are pulling 
in the hands somewhere. If the swing is made 
properly you have a total absence of the feeling 
of power anywhere in the stroke. The club head 
goes through the ball smoothly and you should 
be on your guard the moment you can feel the 
power in the stroke. 

As I have stated repeatedly, it is the accuracy 
and smoothness which give distance and not the 
tremendous effort. You will never lack in 
effort. It is the hardest thing you have to con- 
trol. 

There is another feature which I have observed 

83 



GOLF 

in the majority of amateurs, and that is 
they swing back too slowly. If you will swing 
at a fair speed throughout you will overcome 
largely the tendency to stiffen up, and this is 
what causes the irrepressible desire to get speed 
at the last minute by one tremendous heave. 
Swing at a fairly good speed and don't worry 
so much about every little step in the swing. 
When you are trying any of my suggestions, 
try one at a time and only lend a touch of it to 
your effort. If you dwell too long on any one 
detail you are apt to develop it out of proportion. 
If you swing too slowly it makes quite a physical 
effort of the stroke and you will find greater 
difficulty in keeping the head still. 

The mental attitude has more to do with your 
success than anything else, and the direct result 
of the lack of feeling of power in every inexperi- 
enced player's stroke is a determined endeavor 
on his part to swing hard enough so that he can 
feel it. The result is a foregone conclusion; he 
makes more effort than he can control and gets 
practically none of it to the ball. The scheme, 

84 




Shows the Relative Positions of Club-Head and Hands 
at the Moment of Striking the Ball. 



ACCURACY— NOT DISTANCE 

therefore, is never to swing so hard that you are 
conscious of the effort. 

Take the case of nearly every beginner: when 
he gets about sixty or seventy yards from the 
green he swings easier at the ball in order not 
to go over, and almost invariably he connects 
cleaner and the ball goes about twice as far as 
he planned. The great difficulty in learning is 
the fact that the player has an ever-present desire 
to feel the power go into the ball, and the few 
shots that come off in spite of his violent effort 
only mislead him more and more. Any muscular 
effort which produces the slightest jerk in the 
swing requires a corresponding muscular effort 
to overcome it, and it is the play of the muscles 
working at cross purposes which makes you con- 
scious of the effort you are making. To guide 
the club correctly and to keep it from flying out 
of the hands requires a good firm grip with the 
fingers, and this is the only place where you 
should be conscious of a strain of any kind. 



85 



GETTING THE BALL UP 



CHAPTER VII 

GETTING THE BALL UP 

POWER or force is always transmitted in 
a straight line. This is a fundamental 
law of the universe. It cannot possibly 
be transmitted in any other way. Is it not rea- 
sonable, therefore, that if the club head is travel- 
ing in a dead straight line during the time it is in 
contact with the ball the ball must inevitably 
be impelled along that same line? It is as sure 
as that two and two make four. 

How, then, can any successful style be devel- 
oped which does not take this fact into consid- 
eration? You can be sure that if your club head 
is traveling along the imaginary line which runs 
through the center of your ball, the ball will also 
go along that line. There is nothing about the 
club which will make it do otherwise. 

It being evident that there is only one way that 
the ball can possibly be sent away straight, is 

89 



GOLF 

not that the paramount issue? That is what you 
should concentrate your attention on when you 
have developed a hook or a slice. Don't shift 
your grip, or change your stance, or have a club 
built for a hook when you have developed a slice, 
or vice versa. The thing is simple enough to 
understand and within any one's capacity. When 
you get off your game and develop these faults 
just go back to first principles, and you can cure 
them without much trouble. Remember to keep 
your head in one spot, so that your eyes can see 
clearly whether your club head is going along 
that straight line or not. 

In golf the ball is on the ground, and we know 
from experience that it must be driven off the 
ground and into the air to get the greatest dis- 
tance. In order to illustrate the point I wish to 
make I have provided a sketch. In the cut the 
solid line marked X is the line along which we 
wish to send the ball, because we must get the 
ball off the ground and into the air to obtain the 
greatest flight. By reference to the face of 
the club you will find that the club is "lofted" or 
inclined, in order to present a surface at right 

90 



GETTING THE BALL UP 

angles to the desired line of flight. This "loft- 
ing," or inclining, of the face of the club then will 
get the ball off the ground, which should relieve 
the player from worry on that score. He can 
concentrate all his attention on propelling the 
ball forward. 

Right here is where the vast majority of begin- 
ners make a serious mistake. Instead of confin- 




ing themselves to an endeavor to propel the ball 
forward merely, they feel they must get under 
the ball and hit upward. The club is "lofted" to 
lift the ball. All the clubs are built with that 
very object. If a beginner was taught that thor- 
oughly instead of a lot of confusing and com- 
plicated directions for swinging, etc., he would 
have a correct mental conception of what he is 
trying to accomplish. He would find his own 

91 



GOLF 

correct angles for swinging at his ball, and would 
be working on a correct understanding of the 
stroke. Incidentally he would not take two 
handfuls of sand for a tee. He would also find 
when he addressed his ball that instead of the 
club head being about two inches below his ball 
he would have the ball directly in front of the 
face of the club. This gives an easier angle to 
see the ball and helps the player to hold his head 
still, because if a ball is teed a couple of inches 
in the air, and the club is on the ground when he 
starts, he must make a correction somewhere or he 
will not connect with the ball, but go under it. 
These corrections all tend to disturb the balance 
and make it difficult to see the ball clearly. 

By referring again to the diagram you will 
notice that the straight line to apply the force 
propelling the ball should be along the dotted 
line marked A. The point on which the player 
should fix his eye is at the back of the ball, at 
the point where the dotted line marked B and the 
line through the center of the ball marked A in- 
tersect. Don't try to get farther back after you 
have started your swing and attempt to see under 

92 




Finish of Stroke. The Incline of the Body Is the 

Same as in the Address and at the 

Top of the Swing. 



GETTING THE BALL UP 

the center of the ball — fix your attention solely 
on propelling it forward. If you do not keep 
your head rigidly in one spot you will not see 
anything but a blurred image and you will find it 
very difficult to hit anything accurately. 

A very important factor in accuracy is what is 
known as the "snap of the wrist" and therefore 
I shall endeavor to bring out its purpose more 
clearly. The "snap of the wrist" is made to 
maintain the position of the face of the club at 
right angles to the desired line of flight of the 
ball along line A, as shown in the diagram. It 
is much more important that the face of the club 
is at exact right angles to that line when the ball 
leaves it than when it is first struck on the tee, 
as far as direction goes. The fact that most 
players do hit their ball at right angles and yet 
get a slice is evidence that what I say is so. 

Many players face their clubs in while address- 
ing in order to overcome the slice and to avoid 
foundering their ball or smothering it ; they have 
to gouge at the ball or turn the face of the club 
up as they come to it in order to hit the ball 
clean. It is astonishing how many experienced 

93 



GOLF 

players do this. It comes from a misconception 
of what happens to the club during the back 
swing. 

You will observe that I have drawn a line on 
the shaft of the club in position, marked I. If 
your club was resting on the ground back of your 




ball and you made a hue in the center of the staff, 
such as I have in number 1, when you start your 
back swing properly that line should be turned 
to the right very slowly, so that if you keep your 
head absolutely still you can just manage to see 
this line off to the right out of the corner of 
your eye when the club is about three or four 
feet awav from the ball. That is as far as it 
should be turned away. It should be turned that 

94 



GETTING THE BALL UP 

far when the club head is traveling through three 
or four feet of its arc. The club face is thus 
away from the ball and it should be parallel with 
line A, the line you desire to send the ball along 
when it gets opposite the shoulders. This is done 
by rolling the wrists slightly. 

When you come back to the ball don't attempt 
to roll your wrists back too soon in your anxiety; 
to get them back in time, because even if you do 
hit the ground before you strike the ball it will 
be with the bottom of the club at the back near 
the lead, and it will straighten in ample time. 
This motion I have described is what is called the 
"roll of the wrist" by the professionals. It is 
comparatively gradual and the club travels 
through about four feet while it is being made. 
The snap of the wrist comes at the end of the 
turn the instant the club head connects with the 
ball, and it is done in a flash, while the ball is 
still in contact with the club, so quickly that the 
eye cannot see it. 

By reference to the diagram you will observe 
that the line on the shaft marked 1 is in the center 
and about two-thirds of the way to the left in 

95 



GOLF 

position 2, while it is just visible in position 3. 
This change in position takes place while the club 
is traveling from the tee to about six inches be- 
yond the ball, and it is when this turn, or "snap 
of the wrist," is made properly that direction is 
absolutely assured. The ball will leave the club 
on a beautiful line and with a low, gradual rise. 
It is this "snap of the wrist" which prevents 
the ball from going away to the right when the 
club head comes in contact with it, because the 
ball flattens when it is first struck, as shown at D, 
and when it rebounds from the club, about the 
position marked E, the ball is traveling much 
faster than the club head, because it has the speed 
of the club head plus the rebound due to its being 
compressed when it was first struck at C. This 
turn, or "snap of the wrist," also enables the 
club head to remain on the line A, and the player 
should remember that it is while this is being 
done that the right arm should finish the sweep 
extended as was the left arm on the back swing. 
The left arm is the guiding arm on the back 
swing and the right arm should be the guiding 

96 



GETTING THE BALL UP 

arm the instant the club reaches the ball. The 
transfer is made with a "snap of the wrists." 

Many players have an idea that if they turn 
in the face of the club, as I have described, they 
will hook the ball, but they are mistaken. The 
ball is going very much faster than the club head 
before the club head leaves line A. This "snap 
of the wrist" takes place while the arms are both 
extended, and the idea should be to see how far 
you can keep your club head going along line A. 

I made the experiment recently and I found 
that my club head would hit three sand tees each 
one inch high and six inches between centers or 
twelve inches between the two ends. I aimed at 
the center one and just clipped the top off each. 
This is not a bad experiment to try. 

One great difficulty, as it appears to me, is that 
players are not able to judge as to the direction 
of their own movements, owing to the constant 
change in the location of their arms, shoulders, 
and hands, with reference to the ball. The angles 
are very difficult to gage, and it is my desire to 
work out a series of steps for those players who 

97 



GOLF. 

have little time to work them out for themselves, 
and to give simple methods of obtaining the cor- 
rect lines of force. With that end in view I 
have had a series of photographs taken, which will 
give readers a clearer idea of the lines of force 
than would a word picture. These photographs 
were not posed for in the ordinary sense, for the 
reason that they were taken while actually mak- 
ing the strokes ; in every case my own mind was 
centered upon hitting the ball clean and hard, 
and in every instance a ball was driven away. 

As I have built my game up on the premise 
that keeping the head still in order to see the ball 
clearly is the thing which is most important, all 
the subsequent steps have been constantly modi- 
fied by that. I do not obtain my power by any 
heave at any one point in the swing, but am 
constantly endeavoring to obtain greater smooth- 
ness rather than increase my speed. This has 
actually increased my distance while my direction 
has improved correspondingly. 

In one photograph is given a view at the top 
of my swing, and while the position may suggest 
the most vigorous effort I suggest that the reader 

98 



GETTING THE BALL UP 

will remember how much I have dwelt upon 
the fact that I consider "keeping the head still" 
the foundation of the game. I do not hurry my 
swing in order to get distance, and I do not know 
of any set of muscles I use more than another. I 
think that the principal thing that I have in mind 
when working on my swing is to see how evenly 
I can swing and how I can avoid introducing the 
slightest jerk of any sort, rather than to get more 
power. 

Many players dwell upon the fact that they 
are not limber enough to get a free swing, but it 
is only because they continually strive to get more 
power rather than greater accuracy. At the 
point shown in the illustration every muscle in 
my body is relaxed to its fullest extent, and the 
only thing approaching firmness which I am 
conscious of is in the fingers. 

One photograph which I publish is a bird's-eye 
view of the way I stand to my ball (as though 
the reader was above me), because that is the 
best way to give him an idea of how the stance 
and ball and mental picture of the stroke look to 
me. I think that most any beginner or any one 
i ••• 99 



GOLF 

who has not studied the theory of the game will 
see at once how different my plan looks from his 
point of view or the mental picture or theory upon 
which he works. In the first place, I know that 
very few players will agree with me offhand that 
my club shaft is addressing the ball at the correct 
angle. They cannot conceive that a ball will 
go off on line A if the hands are to the left of 
line C, as shown in the illustration. To any one 
not familiar with the game it looks in the illus- 
tration as though the ball would certainly go off 
to the right of line A, but I know from experi- 
ence that it will not, and the reason is that the 
stance has but little bearing upon the stroke. It 
is the gage you take at the top of your swing 
which counts. The real pivotal center of the 
stroke is not the hands, or wrists, or head, but 
is a point exactly between the two shoulders, and 
I have marked it in the illustration at the base 
of the neck, indicated by a cross (x) . 

The reason I have placed so much emphasis 
upon keeping the head still is in order that this 
pivotal center between the shoulders at the base 
of the neck may preserve its relation to the ball, 

100 




Imagine the Club-Head Moving Rapidly and Note 

How Slowly the Shoulders Must 

Move in Proportion. 



GETTIXG THE BALL UP 

and you can readily see how important that is if 
you are to hit the ball accurately and along the 
line you desire to send it. All the muscles of the 
body below that pivotal center are in action and 
helping to expend their energy to propel the club 
forward, except those which are controlling the 
head. The reason I say that keeping the head 
still and in one spot is the foundation of golf is 
twofold. The first reason is that that is the 
only way in which you can see the ball clearly; 
the second is that in that way only can you 
preserve the pivotal center constant in relation 
to the ball. 

Now, if the centrifugal force is an important 
factor to be considered, and experience has taught 
all golfers after a few swings that it is, allowance 
must be made for it somewhere. It is evident 
that the balance must be preserved, and I have 
found in my own case that if my arms are kept 
straight — that is, the elbows not bent — and I ad- 
dress the ball at the toe of the club instead of the 
center of the face, it gives me the correct distance 
when I come back to the ball. This address is one 
preventive measure because it keeps me from go- 

101 



GOLF 

ing beyond the ball and having to draw my hands 
in to hit it. 

As there is more power transferred through the 
arms by the shoulders and back when the arms are 
extended than when they are bent (due partly to 
the greater leverage by reason of the greater dis- 
tance between the club head and the pivotal cen- 
ter, and the fact that with them extended you 
cannot use the forearms) , you have more nearly a 
fixed line for guiding the club when the club shaft 
and the left arm are in line and you have 
more play of the wrists when your club reaches 
the ball in this style, as shown in the illustration, 
because there is no bend in the left wrist as there 
is when your club shaft is in line between the 
pivotal center and the ball. Not only this, but 
it gives greater freedom on the turn when you 
come to the follow through, and if you have more 
natural freedom at this point than on the back 
swing, you have provided a favorable condition 
for applying your greatest power where it is 
needed. 



102 



MAKING THE SWING 



CHAPTER VIII 

MAKING THE SWING 

THE majority of players devote too much 
time and place too much importance on 
their address. The result is that they fix 
in their minds the appearance of the angles which 
are presented by the position of the arms, legs, 
and club shaft, and it is largely the desire to 
retain these angles constant which results in their 
moving their heads and stiffening their muscles 
so that there is no freedom in the swing. The 
idea of many is to have all the angles which 
they have studied out kept constant until they 
get back to their ball, and this results in shifting 
the feet, changing the grip, and various other 
faults which are seen so often on the links. 

There is only one point which vitally affects 
the stroke, and the only reason why that should be 
kept constant is that you are thus enabled to see 
your ball clearly. That is the pivotal point marked 

105 



GOLF 

at the base of the neck, and a line drawn from this 
point to the ball should be directly at right angles 
to the desired line of flight. The address shown 
in the photograph opposite page 68 with the arms 
extended downward, not bent at the elbows, is 
the only position which I find is comfortable to 
maintain. I desire to caution players that by 
the word extended I do not mean to have it 
understood that the arms are reaching out for 
the ball, but are extended down, with absolutely 
no bend in the left wrist. If the player will 
grasp his club with the left hand, more especially 
in the fingers, rather than in the palm of his 
hand, and place the head of the club in the 
position shown in the illustration, and fix his 
mind solely on finding the most comfortable posi- 
tion he can assume, rather than upon the angle 
of the club face or shaft, he will have grasped 
the idea I wish to convey. My purpose in assum- 
ing the stance shown is to obtain greater comfort, 
thereby giving greater freedom to the play of 
the muscles and avoiding the slightest tendency 
to stiffen, which destroys the freedom of the 
swing. I have found it to be a basic principle 

106 



MAKING THE SWING 

for my; own case in golf that the instant I find 
any stiffening of the muscles at any particular 
point in my stroke to search for some way; to 
give greater freedom and overcome this "setting" 
of the muscles. That will destroy the accuracy; 
of any stroke and also reduce its power. 

As I have found in my early experience that 
bending the elbows in the address results in 
the centrifugal force in the downward stroke 
tending to pull my club head beyond the 
ball and making it impossible to strike accu- 
rately unless I draw them in, thus giving 
a slice, I decided that keeping the arms 
straight should be the simplest way of over- 
coming this trouble. As the majority of golfers 
do this, it is evident that they have reached the 
same conclusion I did. The trouble is that they 
straighten them and reach for the ball besides. 
Reaching for the ball in the address stiffens the 
muscles and prevents any freedom in the swing. 

It is far easier to control the amount of play 
you will allow the arms in the downward stroke, 
if you are coming down inside the ball, than if 
you are going beyond it, because the centrifugal 

107 



GOLF 

force is helping it go out, and you only have to 
yield a little to reach the ball; but if you are 
going beyond the ball you have the centrifugal 
force to overcome in pulling in the hands, which 
multiplies the effort. Therefore it is a decided 
advantage to keep the arms well in toward the 
body. 

My own scheme is to get to the fop of my 
swing in the easiest way I can, and I let the 
centrifugal force carry my club out in the down- 
ward swing until it reaches the ball. This en- 
ables me to exert all my energy in propelling 
my club and leaves but very little effort required 
to guide it. The very first time a beginner 
swings at a ball he invariably swings too short 
because the amount of centrifugal force, or force 
which tends to pull the club outward, is so great 
that he involuntarily pulls in his hands for fear 
he will go beyond the ball. After two or three 
tries he finally lets his arms out enough to reach 
it. There is usually plenty of energy in his 
swing, and he has only to consider how far he 
has to reach to the ball. As soon as he begins 

108 



MAKING THE SWING 

to learn to hit his ball accurately he loses the 
natural freedom of his swing. 

If the hands and arms were in motion in the 
address it would be necessary to have them reach- 
ing for the ball, but as they are stationary the 
idea should be to obtain the easiest and most 
comfortable position in order that as the player 
reaches the top of his swing he will not have 
tired the muscles from holding a set position. 
In the illustration I show the hands to the left 
of the line between the eyes and the ball. This 
position of the hand insures that I will not reach 
the bottom of my swing until after I have reached 
my ball. When the player considers that the 
pivot of the sweep is not at the hands, but at 
the pivotal center between the shoulders, he will 
better grasp the flatness of the arc made by the 
sweep of the club when it goes through the ball. 
Bear in mind that the angles at which you address 
the ball have little or no influence, but it is the way 
you take your gage at the top of the swing that 
counts. 

The distance between the pivotal center and 

109 



GOLF 

the ball as you address it is the equivalent in a 
man of say five feet seven using forty-three-inch 
clubs of a circle the radius of which is seventy 
inches. This would give a circle nearly twelve 
feet in diameter. This is why it is possible to 
get such a flat arc when you reach the ball. 

From the illustration it may be thought that 
I am reaching out for the ball, but that is not the 
case. My arms are both close to my body and 
both are straight. The club shaft and left arm 
are in line and both are parallel to the right leg. 
This gives the player a firmer control of the 
club with the left arm or guiding arm than when 
the left wrist is bent in as you are compelled 
to do when the ball is addressed with the club 
shaft in line between the eyes and the ball. The 
position shown also gives a little more play to 
the left arm in starting the back swing and much 
greater freedom in the wrist. 

The moment the left knee is bent in it throws 
the left shoulder forward while the right hip is 
drawn backward and this makes it possible to 
draw the left arm around close to the body. As 
the body is tilted at an angle of nearly forty-five 

110 




The Address from Overhead, Showing Angles and 

Lines of Motion as They Appear to the One 

Driving. (See Page 99). 



MAKING THE SWING 

degrees, it is necessary to bring the left shoulder 
around as low as possible to avoid striking the 
chin at the top of the swing, thus moving or 
jarring the head and interfering with a clear 
view of the ball. The mistake with the vast 
majority of players is that they do not keep the 
body tilted at the same angle as when they ad- 
dressed their ball, due to the fact that they at- 
tempt to bring the club up over their shoulders 
by a direct lifting up of the club instead of by 
tilting the body. 

The shoulders play a very vital part in the 
swing due to their great power, and any undue 
play of the shoulders is bound to affect the arms 
and the club. The entire effort should be to 
keep the shoulders in the same plane throughout 
their sweep. Avoid raising them, as that changes 
the relative position of the club to the ball. If 
I were to make a general criticism of the majority 
of players I think I should say "Relax!" "Re- 
lax!" Avoid the "setting" of any of the muscles 
rigidly. 

In the early days of my golf I had an idea 
that there was something almost supernatural 

111 






GOLF 

and weird about the way the professionals could 
bring off their shots. I had my mind on a hun- 
dred things and couldn't do any of them well. 
In golf, as in everything else, I have found that 
when anything is not easy and simple to under- 
stand, I had better dispense with it. Do nothing 
you do not understand and have not a definite 
reason for. 

Instead of raising the left heel from the ground 
the effort should be, if at all, to keep it down. 
If your physique will allow you to do so and get 
around to the top of your swing, you will find 
it easier to maintain your balance with both feet 
and both heels on the ground. The more support 
you get the better. My left heel comes off the 
ground because I am not limber enough to keep 
it down and get to the top of my swing easily. 

No one can assume a stance at the outset that 
will be final. As golf is a gradual development, 
the stance, or position in relation to the ball, must 
be progressive and should be changed from time 
to time as the player works out his theories and 
improves the mental picture of his stroke. A 
stance that might be perfectly correct for one 

112 



MAKING THE SWING 

scheme of hitting the ball would be utterly un- 
suitable to another. To my way of thinking, the 
stance must be subordinate to the swing, and as 
the swing is governed by the player's physique, 
I think that setting oneself in a definite position 
and making the swing subordinate to that is 
absurd. 

As I have shown that one of the elementary 
things in golf is the fact that unless the club head 
is traveling along a dead straight line while in 
contact with the ball, the ball won't go along 
that line, it is evident that the player must sat- 
isfy himself by swinging as to what line his club 
travels in its sweep, and then adjust himself in 
his stance so that the desired line of flight and the 
natural line of his sweep coincide. Whether 
the ball is off the right foot or the left foot, or the 
left foot is farther advanced than the right, 
or vice versa, I think is of no consequence, and 
too much time is wasted on the subject by the 
majority of players, with the result that the 
really important item is befogged or overlooked. 
It is the player's swing which should govern his 
stance and not the stance the swing. You can 

113 



GOLF 

and do change your stance every time you strike 
a side hill or down slope or any of the hundred 
varieties of lies on the course, but the swing 
should not be tampered with lightly. 

When I find an awkward shot to be played 
I first satisfy myself as to how I can swing 
without losing my balance and moving my head; 
then I note the line my club travels along and 
walk up to my ball, knowing what to expect. 

As the club head is in contact with the ball for 
several inches of its arc, it is important that the 
ball should be first met at a little distance, say; 
a couple of inches, before the club has reached 
the lowest point in its sweep, because the ball will 
stay against the club head from that point in a 
partially collapsed condition, and the full force 
of the blow will be exerted at a time when the 
club is traveling more nearly parallel with the 
ground. The ball will be less likely to rise 
beyond the line at right angles to the face of the 
club. The thing to observe before assuming 
the stance is where the club head will travel 
for the greatest distance along a straight line in 
whatever swing you have perfected ; then remem- 

114 



MAKING THE SWING 

ber that the ball is in contact with the club head 
for several inches, and after a few trial swings 
you can see what relation your feet have with 
regard to that line. This will determine your 
stance. 

My practice in the address is to keep the hands 
to the left of a line directly between the eyes and 
the ball in order to obtain, first, a clearer view of 
the ball; second, an easier position to start my 
club away from the ball; third, to obtain a more 
comfortable position when holding my left arm 
well extended or straightened, not outward but 
down, because it is easier to maintain the balance 
when the arms do not reach out so far and gives 
greater freedom and flexibility; fourth, in order 
to keep my weight on the flat of my feet, which 
makes it easier to control the swaying of the 
body than when reaching out with the arms and 
throwing the weight on the ball of the foot ; fifth, 
keeping the left arm down also keeps my left 
shoulder down, and gives me a more comfortable 
position when I get to the top of my swing; 
sixth, it prevents my stopping my hands when I 
come down at the ball but fixes in my mind the 

lid 



GOLF 

maintenance of the application of power until my 
ball leaves the club; seventh, because when my 
ball leaves the club head after having been in con- 
tact with it for several inches of its sweep, my 
club face is at exact right angles and my hands 
and the club shaft are at perfect right angles to 
the desired line of flight; eighth, because when 
the ball leaves the club at that point the momen- 
tum still being imparted to the club head draws 
the right arm out after the ball and the finish 
of the stroke takes care of itself without my 
giving thought to it and enables me to finish 
without any tendency to lose my balance; ninth, 
and of the utmost importance, it makes me turn 
my wrists with the right hand over the left, 
and makes it impossible to get the ball away at 
all if I turn the right hand under the left with 
the face of the club up, which is so productive 
of slicing. 



116 



MAKING THE SWING 

(continued) 



CHAPTER IX 

MAKING THE SWING 

(continued) 

A POINT to which I wish to direct especial 
attention is the matter of keeping the 
eyes, club shaft, and club face at dead 
right angles to the desired line of flight of the ball. 
I think it is a great mistake to attempt this, as 
it gives an awkward bend to the left wrist, which 
has to be accommodated at the top of the swing, 
and you will find great difficulty in keeping the 
left arm properly extended if you use that stance. 
Besides this you will experience great difficulty 
in turning the right hand over the left the instant 
your club head meets the ball. It also brings a 
shock upon the wrist which doesn't belong there. 
The worst objection of all is its effect on the 
eyes, as they see so many things moving in a 
line with the ball that they unconsciously have a 
tendency to follow. The fewer things you have 

119 



GOLF 

directly in your line of view the better. This 
is another reason for keeping the hands low. 

The majority of elderly men I have observed 
have a tendency to raise their shoulders too high, 
apparently as though they were trying to get a 
sight on the ball, as if their club shaft was a rifle 
barrel. This only distracts the attention and 
makes it more difficult to keep the balance, as the 
more the arms are reaching out and the shoulders 
raised the more the weight is thrown forward on 
the toes or ball of the foot, and the greater the 
tendency to fall forward the moment they start 
their back swing. It is very difficult to make 
allowances and corrections after the swing has 
begun. 

I have noticed also that the vast majority of 
the older men stand too far away from their ball. 
It is much easier to get speed in the club in a 
short than in a long circle, and yet I have seen 
players take still longer shafts in the hope of 
making up in leverage what they lack in speed. 
I am pretty strong, and yet I have found that 
swinging long-shafted clubs tires me and I am 
sure it must tire them. I have observed that with 

120 




It Is a Mistake for Older Men to Address the Ball 

as Though They Were Trying to Aim 

Along the Shaft. 



MAKING THE SWING 

few exceptions the professionals have all dis- 
carded the long clubs. 

There is a certain amount of speed necessary 
to get distance of any extent, and I should advise 
the older men to use lighter instead of longer 
clubs to accomplish the purpose. They could 
then get up speed in a shorter swing than when 
using clubs of normal weight, and could rely 
more upon maintaining a steady pressure at a 
good speed rather than greater leverage at a 
much slower rate. The effort would be far less 
tiring. 

It should be remembered that in the address I 
keep my arms straight down, close to the body, 
and when I start my club back from the ball 
I keep it on the line of flight upon which the 
ball is resting and against that line as long as 
I can comfortably. As my body is tilted it seems 
that I am making my sweep along the ground 
until my club head is past the base line upon 
which I am standing. 

When it is realized that the circle described 
with the arms extended is equal to the radius in 
a twelve-foot circle it will be apparent how grad- 

121 



GOLF 

ual is the rise of the club from the ground or 
near the ground. I also find that by keeping 
the club on the ground or near the ground until 
I pass the base line upon which I am standing, 
I hardly notice when I turn my wrist, as the turn 
is so gradual. Another thing I observe is that it 
seems as though the left hand parallels the line 
of flight upon which the ball rests. Keeping my 
club close to the ground until I have passed the 
base line upon which I stand also keeps my left 
shoulder from coming up, which would result 
in my straightening up and thus changing the 
whole plane of the swing, and this is exactly 
what the majority of players do. 

To get to the position shown in the illustration 
it is necessary to bend the least bit at the waist 
on the left side of the body. Otherwise the left 
shoulder will be forced around so that it strikes 
the chin at the top of the swing. The bend at 
the waist should only be in the very slightest 
degree, or it will be overdone. It should be per- 
fectly comfortable and hardly noticeable to an 
observer. Most players overdo everything. 

When you bend the left knee have it come in 

122 



MAKING THE SWING 

a very little bit toward the base line upon which 
you are standing. Bend only the least bit, how- 
ever, or you will overdo it. Keep your left heel 
on the ground if you can comfortably. Any- 
thing which causes your attention to be attracted 
to it is being overdone. Now if the player in 
practicing the turn to bring his club to the top 
of the swing will keep his head still, he will find 
that he can comfortably do each of the steps only 
a little. He will also find it to be wise not to put 
his strength into the stroke faster than his wrists 
will get his club into position to take it. 

One of the main things I look for in my pre- 
liminary swing or "waggle" over the ball is to 
"feel" that the natural arc I am using in my 
swing is sure to be flat and "down" to the ball; 
in other words, to be sure that my stance is taken 
in such a manner that it is almost impossible to 
go over the ball. As this has been of such great 
assistance to me I wish that it could be shown 
by a diagram. It is purely by the sense of 
"touch" or feeling that I am conscious of this 
"balance," as it might be called, but it is the main 
thing I watch in my preliminary "waggle." I 

123 



GOLF 

think it is more of a poise of the club, as the guid- 
ing of the club is shifted from the left hand be- 
fore you reach the ball to the right hand after 
you get to the ball. 

It is a very hard point to bring out without 
being able to swing a club to show the idea. I 
note from a careful analysis of the effort that 
one of the points I became conscious of by close 
observation is that the pivot is not made in 
the hands so much, but it is a sort of trial to see 
how my head acts when my arms, shoulders, and 
body are in motion ; if there is the slightest diffi- 
culty in keeping my balance I keep shifting my 
position very slightly until I feel absolutely com- 
fortable and am certain that there will be no 
stiffness at any point in the swing. In other 
words, I endeavor to get everything "free" in 
order that I may not become conscious of a dis- 
turbing element in the swing. My deliberate 
purpose, as I explained in a previous chapter, is 
to keep my head absolutely still in order that I 
can see clearly. 

I do not approve of seesawing from one leg 
to another in the address, because I cannot see 

124 



MAKING THE SWING 

the ball clearly. Do all the "waggling" with 
the arms, shoulders, and hands; if you do that 
well in the preliminary and do not disturb your 
view of the ball, you will have a much greater 
chance of doing it correctly when you make your 
actual swing. Keep the feet still as well, and 
do not sway the body. Seesawing and wiggling 
the feet are bad habits because they disturb you 
in your effort to concentrate upon your ball. 

I made the experiment recently with a friend 
who was badly off his game, and who had been 
off for months, of making him concentrate his 
entire attention in looking at his ball and elim- 
inating every effort and purpose except to see 
that ball clearly every instant on his back swing 
and downward swing. In other words, I insisted 
that he actually "see" his ball clearly the whole 
time occupied in his swing. It cured him of his 
troubles at once, and he said, "Well, I never have 
actually seen that ball right since I took up the 
game." 

This is an illustration of how simple a rule will 
cure all, or nearly all, golfing ills if it is prop- 
erly observed. If the player can actually con- 

125 



GOLF 

trol his effort to the point where he actually sees 
the ball from the start until he hits it, never shift- 
ing his gaze for the least instant, he will never 
have any trouble in hitting that ball, no matter 
what his form may be. If that one point is 
observed it will cure stiffness in the swing, swing- 
ing back too far or too short, or hitting too soon. 
Don't look up an instant or shift your gaze until 
your club head reaches the ball. When you have 
a particularly hard shot to get off put your whole 
mind on this one thing. The best plan is to prac- 
tice hitting a ball a few times in this way and 
you will quickly gain confidence. Shifting the 
glance is as bad as looking away from the ball. 
Keep it on the one spot on the ball throughout. 
Do not look at your club to see if it is squared 
to the ball or allow your eye to follow it as you 
draw it away. The ball and the ball only is the 
one thing to look at. 

Now if you will consider the matter of the 
centrifugal force and will remember the old 
figure of swinging a stone around your head at 
the end of a string, you will remember that the 
stone will gradually leave the ground and go 

126 



MAKING THE SWING 

higher and higher as you increase the speed, until 
when you get up high speed the stone will be 
about as far from the ground as the hand which 
is whirling it. As your club shaft is stiff you are 
able to get up a very high speed at once, and 
you have the same effect upon the club, due to 
the weight of the club head, that the stone has 
upon the string. In addition to this you have 
a complication due to the fact that you are de- 
scribing an upright circle as well as a horizontal 
one, and consequently you must direct the power 
so that these two circles synchronize. 

One very natural result of the player's dis- 
covery of this fact is the effort to get the shoul- 
ders up nearly in a line with the eyes in order 
to see this line. He should remember that the 
eyes are about a foot above the pivotal center, and 
raising the shoulders is not the remedy. The 
more you can get away from taking a sight of the 
ball along the line of the shaft of the club and 
the nearer you can come to getting a bird's-eye 
view of the ball, keeping the line along which 
the power is directed below the line between the 
eyes and the ball, the greater will be the absence 

127 



GOLF 

of disturbing elements along the line of vision 
and the more compact the muscles and the greater 
the flexibility throughout. 

As the head is so far above the line between 
the pivotal center between the shoulders and the 
ball, I find it a great help in my own case to 
look down on the ball rather than to get my 
angles from along the shaft. I have observed 
that I have much better results from this view 
of the ball and far less tendency to look up too 
soon than when I used to take my gage more 
along the shaft. You can get a much better 
view of the position of the face of the club from 
looking down on top of it than when looking 
along the club shaft. In one case the natural 
tendency is to look away when you start to draw 
the club back, as the instinctive desire seems to 
be to follow a moving object. The other way 
your aim has been taken regardless of the club 
shaft and you stand a better chance of hitting 
the ball. I have found from experience that 
much depends upon the way you see your lines 
and fix the angles mentally. 

Before leaving this subject, I must call atten- 

128 



MAKING THE SWING 

tion to a point which may help players to under- 
stand how they can keep their club head traveling 
along the line of flight, which has so much to do 
with the direction. If you will take the view 
shown in the photograph, i. e., looking down on 
top of the ball rather than along the line of the 
shaft, you will notice that if you are leaning over 
properly the only way you can keep the club head 
upon the line of flight is to keep the hands mov- 
ing along parallel with that line. In other 
words, if you draw in your hands you will draw 
in the club head also. The idea should be as 
though you were trying to keep the club shaft 
at right angles with the line of flight as long as 
the ball and the club head are in contact. In 
short, you should sweep the hands along with the 
club head while the ball and club head are in 
contact. This is what the professionals mean 
when they say to "throw the hands out after the 
ball," or "throw the club at the ball." 



129 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 



CHAPTER X 

EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

THE idea of being comfortable and doing 
things easily seems to be a hard one for 
many golfers to grasp. We hear so 
much about physique being so different with dif- 
ferent people that players are apt to assume that 
theirs is one of the remarkable physiques without 
flexibility, and we hear them apologize for their 
lack of freedom by blaming it upon nature. 
This is silly. Everyone is built pretty much alike 
as far as the frame goes, and there is about so 
much play to each hinge joint and each ball and 
socket joint in the body. The point where peo- 
ple differ most, as regards golf, is in their men- 
tal make up. One man grasps a principle easily 
that another man has to "saw wood" to master. 
They say with a mysterious confidence: "It is 
mental," much as they would say: "It is a 
secret, let it go no further." They nurse a pet 

'133 



GOLF 

idea with such persistency that they become in- 
fatuated with it. I have seen players stand for 
minutes, marbleized in an effort to address the 
ball as though the address solved the making of 
the stroke. 

I have often wondered what can be in such 
players' minds. To stand in front of the ball 
with every muscle set and not a trace of move- 
ment, even of an eyelid, is inviting almost sure 
disaster. It is not the way you keep your eye 
on the ball when you are "set" in the address 
which enables you to hit it accurately, but the 
way you keep it on the ball when you are in ac- 
tion that counts. 

Doing things comfortably is the keynote of the 
whole swing. It is what gives the results, be- 
cause the strength is being properly applied. 
The instant you have to brace your muscles you 
should be warned that you are drifting away 
from the correct method of playing. If you will 
let comfort be the check upon any scheme of play 
you adopt, you will not go far wrong. 

As I stated in another chapter, only youngsters 

134 



■ 







This Is an Easier Way for Older Men to Address 

the Ball. 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

will ever be able to learn imitatively. If you get 
better results by your own method, that is the one 
to follow. Don't try to look like somebody else. 
Fix in your mind what you are really trying to 
accomplish, and let your common sense be your 
guide in solving the problem. Do not ask if you 
are rolling your wrists correctly, but ask what 
the object is, and get the player to show you what 
he has in mind in swinging in such and such a 
fashion. If you can learn his reason or purpose, 
you can apply the knowledge. If you merely 
try to imitate his swing, you are not getting any 
permanent benefit from his teaching. You can 
only learn golf little by little, and the steps come 
one at a time. It is so with everyone. 

The three steps in the order of their impor- 
tance, which you must constantly bear in mind 
when working out the various details, are: (1) 
Keep the head still; (2) keep your club head 
traveling in a straight line while in contact with 
the ball; and (3) do not "set" the muscles. If 
you find you are going off your game these are 
the things you must run over in your mind and 

135 



GOLF 

in the order of their importance. Do not change 
your stance and swing. Apply these three items 
in this order and you will get "back" again. 

It is the confusion between pushing and lift- 
ing, of which the player is perfectly conscious 
through his sense of touch or feeling, which 
makes the "timing" of the maximum effort so 
difficult to accomplish. Very few players have 
thought out these two distinct efforts, and it is 
the struggle of the two sets of muscles for mas- 
tery which is responsible for so much lost power, 
those which are used in lifting being opposed to 
those which are used in pushing. 

If you were to grasp with both hands a pole 
about an inch in diameter, firmly fastened to the 
ground and to the ceiling, and attempt to push 
it downward you would find that it would use one 
set of muscles and to lift or push it upward would 
use an entirely different set. When you pushed 
downward it would take most of the weight from 
your legs. When you tried to lift or push up- 
ward it would leave all your weight upon your 
legs, and in addition the amount of extra weight 

136 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

corresponding to the amount of energy you were 
exerting. 

A golf swing is one of the most complicated 
things to study, because the motion is made in a 
circle, but the maximum power is exerted in 
either one way or the other, lifting or pushing 
down, according to the peculiar physique of the 
player and the style he has adopted. The dub 
tries to use both at once. The average player 
compromises and tries first a little of the down- 
ward push and then a little of the lift, and to do 
this he has to shift his head and body to allow for 
whichever set of muscles he is compelled to use. 
This moving or shifting results in disturbing the 
view of the ball, preventing him from seeing it 
clearly, and naturally makes it extremely difficult 
to hit it accurately. 

Players must make up their minds that either 
one system or the other must be sacrificed. If 
you are to use a lift, you can accomplish nothing 
by attempting to lift before your club head 
reaches the ball. If you are going to push, you 
must hold back your maximum effort until the 

137 



GOLF 

club head reaches the ball, or you will have noth- 
ing in reserve to keep the club head against the 
ball long enough to accumulate power and the 
follow through is of no use. 

Mere motion, when not backed up by weight, 
will not transfer much energy to the ball. In 
other words, it would be just as easy to drive a 
ball a great distance with the club head attached 
to a string if it were not for the fact that there 
is not much more than one chance in a million of 
connecting at the exact point of the natural bal- 
ance of the club. The great difficulty in hitting 
the ball with the club at the exact balancing point 
makes necessary a firm grip to overcome the in- 
equalities in the blow. This inequality is distrib- 
uted partly in the player's frame, partly in the 
club shaft, and partly in the ball. The more 
accurately the club strikes at its exact point of 
balance the smaller are these losses, and it is here 
that the attention of beginners should be focused 
— not on a scheme of developing greater power. 
The losses will multiply in a much greater ratio 
than the power can be increased. 

Taking the fact that the weight is the only 

138 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

thing which can be used in an effort exerted 
downward, on the principle that a man can get 
upon a platform and lift much more weight than 
he can pull down on a rope, where the limit he 
can pull is his own weight, the point is to apply 
this weight practically. The player cannot be 
accurate under any conditions where the pull 
downward toward the ball is exerted violently or 
with a heave. The way to hit is to exert the pull 
steadily and accumulate power in the club head, 
which is coming down partly of its own weight 
and partly with the "leaning upon the club," 
which the player exerts and which I have proved 
should be but little. 

You can lean or shift the weight only very 
slowly, and the idea in the player's mind when 
striking downward should be to have the club head 
whirled around by the arms and hands before you 
attempt to lean on the ball, as it were. If you 
are to shift your weight so as to lean on the club, 
you must wait until the club reaches the ball or 
you will not have enough distance to clear the 
ground and avoid hitting back of the ball. It is 
as though you were to lean the weight of the 

139 



GOLF 

shoulders against the ball at the instant the club 
head reaches it. Players start to lean upon the 
ball too soon and shorten the distance between the 
shoulders and the ball too much, and to take up 
the slack, so to speak, are forced to draw in their 
arms. 

When the ball is badly cupped it is common 
sense that you cannot lift it out, as it will be im- 
possible to get down to the ball in order to have 
the lift count. To get down to a cupped ball you 
must lean on the club. 

!A rule in golf which I have thought out care- 
fully is to bring the feet nearer and nearer to- 
gether as you find that you are either hitting too 
soon, looking up too soon, or hitting too hard. 
For instance, if you will take your driver in your 
hands and instead of taking your stance place 
both heels together you will find that it will abso- 
lutely control your effort to hit too hard. You 
cannot hit too hard and stay on your feet and you 
will unconsciously ease up. Many things have 
drawn my attention to this fact and it has been 
so impressed upon my mind that I have decided 

140 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

to offer it as a rule. I have noticed that those 
players who spread their feet far apart on a shot 
are invariably "over" when they hit the ball true. 
I have noticed that those players who play the 
finest " sunning up " approaches and keep the 
finest line stand with the feet close together. I 
have noticed that those players who sclaff and 
top the most invariably stand with what is called 
a "wide open stance." I find in my own case 
that this rule invariably has put me back on my 
drive at once when I get a little off. I have also 
found that it is absolutely efficacious in a high 
wind. The harder the wind blows the more you 
should bring the feet together. This may not 
seem reasonable, but I have tried it out thor- 
oughly and know it will accomplish the desired 
result. 

It would seem as though the wind would blow 
you off your balance when you do not brace 
yourself against it, but that very bracing of the 
muscles makes accuracy still more difficult. The 
average player thinks that he should hit harder 
when driving into a wind, but it is not the way to 

141 



GOLF 

get off a good ball. Be more careful to hit 
perfectly true and you will be astonished to see 
the distance you get. 

I have tried the idea out with beginners and 
they invariably respond with an improvement. 
On short shots it has been absolutely reliable. It 
makes for an easy, graceful swing ; it helps won- 
derfully in keeping the head still and it over- 
comes the tendency to stiffen up so common with 
beginners. It will teach you to use the body and 
shoulders more and correct most of the faults in 
"timing'' the stroke. It overcomes the natural 
tendency to throw the balance off, or from one 
foot to the other, which will always disturb the 
position of the head and change the relative posi- 
tions of the entire scheme upon which you take 
your gage. 

Taken in connection with the first and most 
important rule of golf — that is, to keep the head 
absolutely still throughout the swing — it is prob- 
ably one item which will accomplish more good 
than paying attention to fifty other things. 

A suggestion in connection with these two rules 
is to allow the "follow through" to pull you 

142 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

around. This will stop your "hitting so blamed 
hard." I have noticed that those players who 
use the "wide-open stance" invariably are hard 
hitters and very wild in direction. Just consider 
that if you spread your feet apart and brace your- 
self very firmly your natural instinct is to swing 
hard. The reason is probably the fact that the 
muscles have been trained by years of experience 
to respond with a great effort when such a posi- 
tion is assumed, and the desire to "kill the ball" 
which is so strong in everyone, and against which 
I have been warning players, is perfectly natural 
with a "wide-open stance." 

If you had to balance yourself on one foot your 
effort would be very mild, no matter what your 
desire was. The instinct to keep your feet would 
be too strong to be resisted. 

In the practice swings of the majority of play- 
ers you will notice that they do not spread their 
feet apart ; they merely try out the arms, and that 
is why they get such a smooth, easy swing. The 
moment they attempt to hit the ball the very firm- 
ness of the stance predisposes them toward a more 
violent effort, and that is where they "fall down" 

143 



GOLF 

on the shot. The more difficult the shot the 
greater freedom you require for the play of the 
muscles to bring it off, and this same rule will 
apply to it. A little experimenting with this idea 
in mind will do much to help players who find 
they are "off their game." 

I do not want to be understood as advocating 
a stance for a drive with the heels together, but 
I do say that when you find yourself hitting too 
soon, looking up too soon, or hitting too hard, 
you should bring the feet closer and closer to- 
gether until you have overcome the tendency. 
This rule applies also to the playing of short 
shots and should be followed without the slightest 
hesitancy. The shorter the shot the nearer the 
feet should be brought together. 

A fact which requires careful consideration is 
that if you stand a little nearer to the ball than 
you are accustomed to, you are naturally more 
over it, or at least it brings the head more over 
it, which amounts to the same thing. Naturally 
you cannot make a very great effort without dig- 
ging into the ground behind the ball, because the 
centrifugal force generated in the downward 

144 




; - ■ ; 





f 


. / / 






\ 



Bird's-Eye View of the Finish of the Swing. 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

swing will carry the club beyond or below the 
ball. 

This may appear to be wrong, but it is not. 
The reason it is not is that it makes you hold back 
your maximum effort until your arms have room 
to go out to the limit of your reach which enables 
you to apply the greatest power at the right time ; 
that is, after you have connected with the ball. 
In other words, you first connect with the ball 
when your arms and shoulders have not been ex- 
tended to their limit. You have some leeway 
still to follow up the blow by letting the arms 
and shoulders go out after the ball and keeping 
the club head against it. If you try to keep your 
club head against the ball steadily, when the arms 
and shoulders have reached out to their limit, you 
must yield somewhere in order to do so, because 
when the arms and shoulders have reached their 
limit the club must start upon its upward jour- 
ney, and as the ball moves out in a straight line 
while the club is moving upward on a curved line 
the only way that the club head can stay against 
the ball is for you to yield somewhere. The mo- 
ment you yield with the body your head moves 

145 



GOLF 

and your muscles must stop work or you will fall 
over forward. 

This is exactly what the average player does. 
He has no leeway to follow up the blow of the 
first impact of the club, and that is all the power 
that is exerted upon the ball. In other words, the 
ball is slapped away instead of having a steady, 
accumulating pressure against it. You are com- 
pelled to look up because you cannot continue 
your effort. Your eye, as well as your sense of 
touch, tells you that you are going beyond your 
ball, and you involuntarily let up on the power 
because you know you will not connect with the 
ball if you keep up the effort, and as I have 
shown in a previous chapter, you will always let 
up when your principal purpose is accomplished. 
You cannot help doing it. 

If you have held something in reserve in order 
to maintain the pressure against the ball for some 
distance after you first connect with it you will 
keep adding to its speed, and if it were possible 
for you to swing fast enough to increase the speed 
of the club as rapidly as the ball is moving after 
you connect with it so that your club head would 

146 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

still be against it for a couple of feet farther out, 
it would give you a tremendous distance. Now 
the harder you hit the ball when you first meet 
it with the club head the quicker it will bounce 
away and the shorter the time you can keep the 
club head against it. This not only reduces the 
distance obtained but it also emphasizes any slight 
error in hitting it. 

In suggesting that players stand over their 
ball more in addressing it, the fact that this brings 
the center of gravity nearer to the place where it 
belongs should be at once apparent. The con- 
sequent increase in ability to maintain the balance 
should convince the player that it is a decided ad- 
vantage. Instead of having to brace the muscles 
all over the body to maintain the equilibrium con- 
stant you can stand comfortably and reach your 
ball easily. According to the Standard diction- 
ary, "Equilibrium signifies the state of a body 
which, submitted to action of any number of 
forces, is still in the same condition as if those 
forces did not act." 

So far as propelling the ball is concerned, the 
only muscles which add anything to the force of 

147 



GOLF 

gravity which pulls upon the club head on its 
downward sweep, increasing the speed at which 
it is traveling, are those muscles which would twist 
the body around. The muscles which are used 
in lifting are useless. They are the most power- 
ful, as they get the most exercise, and the most 
powerful of all are in the legs. The effort to use 
them causes you to change the relative distance 
between the pivotal center of the stroke and the 
ball. As they are the strongest muscles in the 
body, and any effort to use them is neutralizing 
whatever effort you are making to increase the 
downward and forward sweep of the club, it 
should be evident that you must avoid any such 
effort. If you do use them they will only keep 
your head swaying around and destroying any 
chance you may have to hold it still and see your 
ball clearly. 

If you wish to keep your head still, and that is 
really the only thing to master in golf, regardless 
of all the things I have written, you will find that 
when you absolutely stop every tendency to use 
the lifting muscles, you can use all the strength 
you have in the other muscles without disturbing 

148 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

the position of the head. If you brace yourself 
by standing with the feet far apart you cannot 
help using the lifting muscles. It is bound to 
happen, because the action is involuntary. If 
you are not so braced you cannot use them, be- 
cause your body is not in the right position to do 
so. If you cannot use them by reason of stand- 
ing with the feet fairly close together, you cannot 
move your head much, even if you want to. 

The only thing which you can possibly accom- 
plish by using the lifting muscles and bracing 
yourself with the feet well apart is to lift the club 
up quickly, and every rule I have ever heard 
given is to go back slowly. If you are not braced, 
your muscles cannot raise the club quickly. This 
is accomplishing much. If you are in a comfort- 
able position, such as you are accustomed to stand 
in naturally, you will easily see that you cannot 
reach for the ball very much without spreading 
the feet apart. As reaching for the ball gives 
you no leeway, this is another point where stand- 
ing easily and comfortably is curing a fault. 

To look at a good player with the intention of 
noticing the difference in his method and that of a 

149 



GOLF 

poor player, this easy, comfortable position is at 
once apparent in the better player's stance. He 
does everything easily. He has learned to cut out 
the things which spoil a poor player's efforts. 
He has learned to relax his lifting muscles and 
can take slight liberties in the matter of stance. 
For the average player a stance with the feet 
closer together is bound to be a great help. What 
the beginner and the average player need is not 
power, as I have said so many times, but accuracy. 
That gives the distance and there is then time 
enough to refine and perfect the accuracy to gain 
more power. It is the harmony of perfect action 
in the good player's swing which gives the results. 
All the energy in excess of that which passes 
into the ball is wasted. Players swing so hard as 
a rule that they cannot get the feel of a correctly 
hit ball and consequently their muscles are not ed- 
ucated to the "feel" of correct balance, etc. 
Neither are their eyes trained, which would, to an 
extent, govern the involuntary action of the mus- 
cles. Certainly a man who is not swinging cor- 
rectly may be supposed to be moving his head 

150 



EASE RATHER THAN EFFORT 

also, so that he cannot see the ball clearly when 
the club head meets it. 

Players can tell the moment they are going to 
play a good game because they have the "feel" of 
the shot, which is only another way of saying 
that the muscles and sense of touch have been 
awakened to the correct gage and balance, and 
the player knows he can hit the ball. A couple 
of times a year is about as often as the average 
player gets right on his game and plays his best, 
because about that often he has worked and 
slaved and finally got the "feel" of it. 

The secret of it is to study this matter of lift- 
ing and pushing down. I have demonstrated 
that each effort requires an absolutely different 
set of muscles, and have called attention to exam- 
ples of what I call exercise by the resistance 
method. You get exercise but not speed. 

Get the right idea clearly in mind and you will 
be astonished at the distance you begin to get 
and the peculiar "feel" of the shot. You will get 
a smoothness which you never had before and you 
will connect very easily with your ball. Nat- 

151 



GOLF 

urally you get the increased distance and the 
longer ball you require. Bear in mind that the 
slightest tendency to lift in any way is cutting 
down your power, because for every bit of "lift" 
you add, just so much "leaning upon the ball" is 
neutralized; or just so much weight is taken away 
from the blow. A little practice along these lines 
will soon train your muscles correctly and you will 
get the "feel" of the shot and after that the con- 
fidence will come quickly. 



1152 



THE PART THE BODY PLAYS 



CHAPTER XI 

THE PART THE BODY PLAYS 

ATTENTION has been directed to the po- 
sition of the body in the address, and es- 
pecially to the tilt of the body, which 
I have said must remain constant with reference 
to the ball, but this is easier said than done. It is 
very difficult to execute, but it is not difficult to 
understand, once the correct idea is grasped. It 
is immaterial to the player to know each particu- 
lar bend and twist of the spinal column in order 
to accomplish this desirable object, as it will be 
sufficient that his purpose is to keep his body tilted 
at the angle I have shown. 

The real point to grasp is the position of the 
left arm at the top of the swing. By reference 
to the figure you will see that the shoulders 
are not raised at all. The angle at which the 
body is tilted makes it look as though the right 
shoulder was raised, but it is not. The left arm 

155 



GOLF 

is not raised above the right shoulder. To show 
that this is so I have made a drawing (Fig. 2) 
to show the positions as they would appear if the 
body was not tilted. In my own case it took me 
a long time to unlearn what I had read and been 
told about raising my arms and getting my club 
over my right shoulder. If the body is tilted 
properly there is very little, if any, tendency to 




-V#^=T 



T 



I 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 

raise the head and jump at the ball or duck the 
knees. 

If the player can get through his head that 
there should be no "lunging" at the ball, but that 
the power should be developed by twisting the 
body, he will find that it does not take three or 
four years to hit the ball easily and get good dis- 
tance. The fact that so many, practically all, 
players in the early stages endeavor to heave vio- 

156 



THE PART THE BODY PLAYS 

lently at the ball shows that it must be their un- 
derstanding of the stroke that is at fault and not 
the lack of the physical ability to drive the ball a 
good distance which is to blame. 

It is a hard game, mighty hard, if you Have to 
learn all these little factors from experience, but 
if the player can get the right idea in his mind 
the shots are not difficult to play. That is why 
so many golfers in talking about the game keep 
saying, "It is all mental," as though there was 
some mysterious gift which made a golfer of a 
man. I never took much stock in any method 
of playing a stroke which could not be explained, 
and I think the average golfer is built the same 
way. Of course, after a thousand attempts with 
as many different schemes for playing a shot, and 
still without success, a player is apt to despair, 
but he should not. Any man of average intelli- 
gence and physique can play shots as well as the 
best of them if he can get the correct basis to 
work upon into his head. 

When you keep making a failure of a certain 
shot just stop and consider what you are doing 
and what you are trying to accomplish and don't 

157 



GOLF 

try schemes unless you have a definite purpose in 
using them. By referring to Figure 1 you will 
understand why "keeping the head still" is the 
foundation of golf. If you move the head by 
raising up you destroy the whole plane upon 
which the swing is based and make the twist of the 
body act nearer the planes shown in Figure 2. 
If you try to use any lift at all in the stroke you 
can easily understand why you will be going over 
your ball, as any twisting motion that does not 
keep the body tilted is bound to be acting nearer 
the planes shown in Figure 2. If you attempt 
to gain power by using anything but the twist 
of the body, which you are forced to do when 
standing erect, or anywhere near erect, you can 
see that the twist will be wasted and you are com- 
pelled to use all your muscular energy to main- 
tain your balance. If you attempt to strike the 
ball on any other plane or angle than the lower 
one, shown in Figure 1, you will find that the 
club is not built to connect with the ball on such 
a plane. 

If you can learn to depend wholly upon the 
twist of the body to do the work, you cannot have 

158 



THE PART THE BODY PLAYS 

any difficulty in keeping the head in one place, 
because if you will look at the cut you can see 
that twisting the body leaves the head in a direct 
line with the center of the circle or sweep. That 
is why I continually refer to the head as being 
the foundation of the stroke. I am merely try- 
ing to lead up to that fact from various points of 
view to impress upon players its true significance. 
You can also see that if you depend solely upon 
the twist of the body for power you cannot intro- 
duce a single lifting motion when you swing 
downward at the ball without destroying the rela- 
tive position of the body toward the ball. The 
true pivotal center, therefore, is not a single spot 
between the shoulders, but a line running 
through the top of the head straight downward 
through the center of the body. 

When it is remembered that the greatest speed 
is necessary the instant the club head meets the 
ball in order that the ball will not get away from 
the club head too soon, it will enable you to hold 
enough back to get this increased speed as you 
"go through" the ball. In short, you get a grad- 
ually increasing speed, not only to the club, but 

159 



GOLF 

to the twist of the body, and to do that properly 
there should be no apparent effort to increase it. 
The power necessary to keep increasing the speed 
after it once starts is very little. If you start 
slowly, the same amount of power required to 
start, if maintained steadily, will make the club 
head and body move or twist around faster and 
faster, just as in the case of the familiar example 
of the child's merry-go-round. It starts slowly 
and the same amount of energy applied steadily 
gives an ever-increasing speed. 

It is difficult, very difficult, for players to learn 
this apparently simple fact. It is very hard to 
swing easily, because the player cannot "feel" this 
gradually increasing speed. All players seem to 
think it is necessary to "feel" the power, and the 
pnly way that it is possible to "feel" it 
is to destroy the balance in some way in or- 
der that the energy being developed can react 
upon the frame. You will "feel" the power the 
instant you lose your balance in the slightest de- 
gree, and it is too bad you cannot transfer the 
sense of touch or feeling to the club head. If 
you could, you would quickly be educated to the 

160 



THE PART THE BODY PLAYS 

correct idea. It is the energy which is trans- 
ferred to the ball that counts, and the only way 
to get much transferred is to hit the ball per- 
fectly true. 

If the player will study continually how to elim- 
inate every little detail which offers resistance, or 
which tends to destroy the balance in the slightest 
degree, he will quickly get upon the right track. 
This resolved into a simple formula is, cut out 
everything which is not comfortable. The ability 
to keep the balance comfortably is the measure of 
the amount of power you can use successfully. 

Nine players out of ten lif t their heads at the 
last instant. That does not add power to the 
stroke; on the contrary, it takes just that much 
power away from the blow. It is at the end of 
the stroke that you must "lean upon the ball," so 
to speak, because it is the weight added to the 
momentum of the club and following the blow 
which gives substance to it. Drive the ball down. 
If you hit down your weight is bound to follow 
into the blow. 



161 



THE VARDON GRIP 



CHAPTER XII 

THE VARDON GRIP 

THE year I first took up golf and the first 
week I played I adopted the "Vardon 
grip," and I have never had occasion to 
change it. Each year I have only become more 
and more convinced of its advantages. Vardon 
was on his famous tour of the United States that 
year and photographs of his grip were published 
in the golf magazines, and that is where I first 
saw it. 

I argued that as Vardon, Braid, and Taylor all 
used this grip, and they were the world's greatest 
golfers, they had probably given it a thorough 
tryout and were convinced of its merit. 

Since I first started to work on my game that 
was one thing I never had trouble with, and I will 
give for the benefit of any who may not be famil- 
iar with it a description. The handle of the club, 
or grip, is grasped with the left hand, with the 

165 



GOLF 

thumb pointing down the shaft at the center of 
the club head and with about a half inch of the 
shaft projecting back of the hand. The right 
hand is placed open underneath the shaft just 
ahead of the left hand toward the club head and 
the two middle fingers are brought upward 
against the shaft and then slid along toward the 
left hand until the finger next to the little finger 
touches the forefinger of the left hand and the two 
middle fingers are then folded part way around 
the shaft. The thumb of the right hand is then 
brought over the shaft and closed equally upon 
the second finger and the shaft at right angles to 
the shaft. The forefinger, or index finger, is 
then brought around under the shaft until the tip 
touches lightly the tip of the thumb. The little 
finger of the right hand is then closed equally 
upon the forefinger of the left hand and the third 
finger of the right hand. 

I have found this grip to be an improvement 
over the orthodox grip for the following reasons : 
It prevents the shifting of the hands at the top 
of the grip, a very common fault with beginners. 
It curtails the freedom of the wrists and prevents 

166 



1 




1 


1 




\ J 




THE VARDON GRIP 

the tendency to use the forearm too freely in the 
swing, as you can readily see by making the fol- 
lowing experiment : 

Place the two hands extended at arm's length 
together, the palm of the right hand up, the left 
hand down. Double the fists as you would in 
grasping a club by the orthodox method. Then 
observe that if you had a club in your hands you 
could make a half circle by turning the wrists and 
hands over so that the palm of the right hand is 
down and the left up. There is the greatest free- 
dom in turning the wrists, and as the most com- 
mon fault with beginners is using the arms to do 
the work which the shoulders, back, and legs are 
better fitted for, anything which helps to restrain 
the natural tendency in this direction as the Var- 
don grip does is beneficial. It will influence you 
unconsciously to utilize the more powerful mus- 
cles. 

It has the further advantage of being a guide 
in bringing the hands and club back to the ball 
in the correct position as they were in the address, 
because you will find by a few experiments how 
awkward it is to get back to the ball from the top 

167 



GOLF 

of your swing, using the "Vardon grip," in any 
other way than by turning on a perfect pivot. If 
you are compelled by the lack of freedom in the 
wrists to extend the arms fully to get any play at 
all in the w r rists, it will be bound to reduce the 
tendency to pull in the arms too soon, and will 
thereby largely overcome the tendency to slice. 

The same experiment I suggested above, which 
shows the freedom and play of the wrists in the 
orthodox grip, made with the Vardon grip, will 
show you how much this grip curtails the freedom 
of the wrists. In comparing the two methods the 
difference will be more noticeable if the hands are 
clenched tightly as you would in grasping a club. 
Then by bending the elbows slightly you will ob- 
serve how extremely difficult it is to turn the wrists 
at all, keeping the hands tightly closed as in grip- 
ping a club. If the grip prevents turning the 
wrists freely and makes you extend the arms to 
turn them at all, naturally your shoulders will re- 
spond and begin to help. 

Take a club in your hands and try lifting it up 
over your right shoulder, keeping the left arm 

168 



THE VARDON GRIE 

firmly extended throughout and bending the right 
elbow sufficiently to pull the club over until the 
shaft touches the shoulder, and you will find you 
have equal freedom with both the orthodox and 
the "Vardon grip." In the raising and lowering 
of your club you need freedom, but any grip 
which causes you to rely upon twisting your 
shoulders around to get the sweep of the club and 
makes it extremely difficult to get any sweep at 
all in rolling the wrists is placing the burden of 
the work where it belongs. It will force you to 
turn the body to get around any distance with 
the shoulders. This is a very desirable result. 
This grip for the same reason makes it extremely 
difficult to finish the swing in any but a correct 
and complete turn of the body and shoulders, and 
naturally makes a good "follow through" impera- 
tive. 

A very important advantage of the "Vardon 
grip" is the added firmness or control of the tend- 
ency of the club to twist in the hands as you 
strike the ball. This is due to the fact that the 
left thumb down the shaft with the base of the 

169 



GOLF 

right thumb pressing on it acts as a brake, so to 
speak, and saves many a shot struck too near 
the toe of the club. 

If you will make the experiment of drawing 
up your club to the top of your swing very slowly, 
using the Vardon grip, in the same manner as you 
would use with the orthodox grip, you will find it 
extremely awkward in the first place and lacking 
in the feel of power in the next place. This awk- 
wardness and lack of the feeling of power have 
condemned the grip to many who have tried it su- 
perficially and unadvisedly, but if they had real- 
ized what a remarkably clever invention it is to 
carry a golfer over the difficult spots in the swing, 
they would never discard it, especially with such 
a criticism as I have heard frequently: "Oh, I 
could never get any power in my swing with that 
grip." This very remark shows the mental pic- 
ture of such a player's stroke. He gets his power 
principally from his forearms and misses the free- 
dom he gets with the orthodox grip. 

Various reasons have been given to explain why 
Vardon, Taylor, Braid, and others, use this grip, 
but I have heard most frequently the one that 

170 



THE VARDON GRIP 

because their hands are so large they are compelled 
by that fact to adopt the grip. If it is so bene- 
ficial to a man with large hands, I fail to see the 
logic in the inference that it would not be bene- 
ficial to a man with small hands as well. A man 
with small hands is presumed to have less strength 
in them than the man with large hands. A firmer 
grip would seem to be a decided benefit. 

It is when you come to play the irons that you 
will find the "Vardon grip" of the greatest bene- 
fit. The more perfect control of the club and the 
restraining action on the freedom of the wrists 
from turning over too freely will give material re- 
sults when you are trying to keep a good line. 
As an illustration of the better control of the Var- 
don grip and ability to place and direct the club 
with accuracy, make the following experiment: 
Take a nail and drive it into a board until it will 
hold its position. Then take your cleek and at- 
tempt to drive that nail farther into the board 
with the bottom of the club with each grip. You 
will observe the better control of the overlapped 
grip if you will strike a good, firm blow on the 
nail. With the left thumb down the shaft, as in 

171 



GOLF 

the Vardon grip, the club shaft and left arm are 
more in line and form one continuous shaft from 
the shoulder to the club head, and the left arm is 
the arm to watch in golf. 



172 



PLAYING THE CLEEE 



CHAPTER XIII 

PLAYING THE CLEEK 

THE designers of clubs have produced a 
model which takes care of the difference 
in the nature of the blow to be struck with 
a cleek and with a wooden club by "lofting" or 
inchning the face of the club more, which causes 
the ball to rise more quickly, as well as higher. 
Also by reason of a shorter and stiff er shaft the 
arc of the sweep is sharper or less "flat." That 
is to say, the design of the club will take care of 
all the differences without any effort of the player 
at all. The same effort and the same "timing," 
as in wooden shots, will get the desired result. 
Leave all the changes to be made to the club. 

The one great fault with poor iron players is 
that they swing so hard and fast that the club does 
not have a chance and no accurate blow is possible 
with such a violent effort. As the shaft is stiff er 
the weight goes into the blow quicker or the reac- 

175 



GOLF 

tion of the shaft is quicker once you connect with 

the ball. 

I have drawn a sketch showing the theoretical 

as well as actual result of playing a cleek with the 

same style of stroke as used with a driver, that is, 

by picking it off the ground clean. In position 




1 I have shown the cleek against the ball and 
drawn a dotted line marked P at perfect right 
angles to the face which is the line along which 
the ball should rise theoretically. I have also 
shown by the dotted line S the arc of the sweep 
when perfectly described with the hands moving 
parallel with the line of flight with the whole 
leverage of the blow extending from the pivotal 
center between the shoulders. In position 3 is 
shown the club at the instant the ball is leaving it, 

176 




Top of the Swing for a Full Cleek Shot. 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

and you will see by dotted line marked A the 
actual line or angle of rise; the line is drawn at 
perfect right angles to the club face. This, re- 
member, gives a very high ball without turning 
up the club face with the hands, but by simply 
propelling the club forward as low as you can. 

By referring to position 1 you will notice that 
the club touches the ball below the center and also 
that the distance between that point of contact 
and the ground is very little, giving but a very 
small latitude for error in hitting the ball. For 
instance, if the club is not well down to the ball 
— is even as little as a quarter of an inch too high 
— you are sure to have a three-quarter or half 
topped ball, and by reference to position 2 you 
will readily understand what a loss of power will 
result, because the weight of the club head does 
not go into the ball; the shock of the blow is taken 
up by the shaft and not by the ball. This results 
in that uncomfortable "feel" which a three-quar- 
ter topped ball gives. 

If the blow is delivered a quarter of an inch 
too low the club strikes the ground several inches 
too far back and a partly sclafFed ball is the re- 

177 



GOLF 

suit, due to the blow being wasted on the ground 
partly and partly to the fact that the dirt and 
grass get between the club face and the ball, 
deadening the blow. 

As the rebound of the ball is so much more 
rapid from metal than from wood the ball is ac- 
tually in contact with the club face a very much 
smaller period of time. The sharper blow is 
given by the design of the club as I have ex- 
plained and the whole distance depends entirely 
upon the first impulse or sharpness of the blow. 
This method is by long odds the most difficult way 
of playing the club, as it gives so little latitude 
for error and so little time to deliver the power 
due to the quick rebound from the metal face. 
As it is the theory of the average golfer I have 
taken it up here in order to demonstrate how little 
this way compares with the way a professional 
plays his cleek. 

The vast majority of spoiled cleek shots are 
topped, for the reason that it is almost impossible 
to avoid topping when you consider how little 
space you have to get "down" to the ball. By 
again referring to the diagram you will observe 

178 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

that the dotted line P, drawn at right angles to 
the club face as shown in position 1, marks the 
highest point which the club can reach and not 
half top the ball, while the ground is the bound- 
ary, below which the club cannot go without 
wasting the strength of the blow or sclaffing the 
stroke. As a matter of fact, there is even less 
latitude for a well-hit ball. 

More important than this is the fact that you 
have practically no latitude as regards the arc or 
sweep of the club. The ball must be met abso- 
lutely at the lowest point in the sweep of the club 
to get the best distance, because the club face is 
tilted at the same angle that a hoe is when drawn 
toward the one using it, and feeds into the ground 
if it meets with resistance. In the illustration I 
have shown the club meeting the ball under ideal 
conditions with that scheme of playing it, and 
with the eyes and pivotal center at perfect right 

* 

angles to the ball. 

The pivotal center between the shoulders gov- 
erns the lowest point in the arc or sweep of the 
club, as I have shown in other chapters, and in 
order to meet your ball at the lowest point in the 

179 



GOLF 

circle, or sweep, the center between the shoulders 
must be opposite the ball. Falling back from 
the direction you are trying to send the ball will 
not get the club "down" to the ball, but on the 
contrary will top the ball. You cannot possibly 
help it, because the club is on its upward travel, 
due to your having shifted the pivotal center to 
the right and back of the ball. 

Many players have a habit of "facing the club 
in" in addressing iron shots. This is the result 
of a desire on the part of the player to "square" 
the club face with the line he is to send the ball 
along, and unless he commits some other neutral- 
izing fault the ball is bound to be "hooked" or 
pulled off the line. All these schemes are wrong, 
and it is because they require the player to tam- 
per with his swing that they are very objectiona- 
ble. In any event they yield but a temporary im- 
provement, if any, and in the long run are worse 
than useless because they make it necessary to 
"unlearn" them, which is very hard to do. 

The idea in the player's mind should be to take 
his stance in such a manner that the lowest point 
in his swing will be about five inches ahead of his 

180 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

ball, in order that he will be sure to connect with 
the ball while still on the downward sweep. If 
the hands, in the address, are directly opposite the 
lowest point in the swing, as they should be, and 
the club face is against the ball (which is five 
inches behind the lowest point) the player will 
find that in order to have the club face at right 
angles to the line of flight when it reaches the 




*-*.. 



lowest point in the arc or sweep that the face 
must turn away to the right when addressing the 
ball. By referring to the diagram, position 1, 
this point is very plain. Position 3 shows that 
the club face is squared to the line of flight at 
the time the ball leaves it, and this is why the ball 
goes straight. 
As the club face is turned away slightly in the 

181 



GOLF 

address it should be turned away still more as the 
club is drawn back, and this turning should con- 
tinue as far as you can to the top of the swing. 
As the club returns to the ball it should connect 
as it did in the address, and the turn be continued 
as is shown in the illustration. The turn is not 
stopped when position 3 is reached, but is con- 
tinued to the end of the stroke. One of the great 
difficulties in playing the cleek as well as the 
other irons is that players do not make this turn, 
but endeavor to keep the club face squared 
throughout; this not only destroys much of the 
vigor and snap in the stroke, but absolutely pre- 
vents freedom of the play of the muscles. 

Players are prone to believe that the ball will 
go off from the proper line if they do not keep 
the club face squared. This is not the secret. If 
the club is traveling along a straight line while in 
contact with the ball, it makes little difference 
if the face of the club is not exactly squared, be- 
cause the ball responds to the greatest force work- 
ing upon it. If that force is being exerted along 
a certain line the slight imperfection of the club 
face being pointed a little to the right or left at 

182 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

the moment of contact will not aff ect the stroke 
very considerably. Players are apt to believe 
that making this turn complicates the scheme, but 
a few trials will soon convince them that it really 
simplifies the stroke. 

In addressing the ball remember that in using 
the method shown in the cut the "aim" is to drive 
the ball downward. Do not be afraid that your 
club is going too deep into the ground, because 
it cannot; as the shaft is shorter than that of the 
driver, it comes away from the ground quicker, 
and the one thing to consider is the fact that 
ninety per cent of all cleek shots by those who 
cannot play them are topped. Just pound the 
ball into the ground and put your shoulders into 
it. That will do the trick. 

In properly starting any scheme for playing 
a shot with the cleek, it is of vital importance to 
understand thoroughly just what happens to the 
ball or how the transmission of energy to it from 
the club head affects its flight. I have shown by 
illustration why a glancing blow or a blow struck 
with a club with an inclined or lofted face is lack- 
ing in power, due partly to the ball skidding on 

183 



GOLF 

the surface of the metal club, partly to the fact 
that the ball bounces away quicker, being com- 
pressed less, and partly to the fact that it requires 
far more accuracy to get the contact exactly in 
the middle of the club face, on account of the very 
small latitude for error when attempting to play 
the cleek as you would your driver, picking the 
ball off the turf clean without injuring or cut- 
ting it. 

Right at this point I might say that the "greens 
committees" of the best kept courses in the coun- 
try have not the slightest objections to players 
taking any sized divot or piece of turf they desire. 
What they do object to is carelessness in not re- 
placing it. If you replace the turf it will grow 
again, hardy as ever. If you knock the divot 
into such small pieces that you cannot find them 
you should tramp the edges of the cut in the turf 
down tight in order that the grass which is hang- 
ing loose will grow again. If that is done the 
grass will grow over the cut and soon fill it up, 
because it is the nature of grass to protect its 
roots. 

Manjr experiments and a great many thousands 

184 




Address With Mid-Iron or Cleek for the 
"Picked" Shot. 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

of dollars have been spent by the different gov- 
ernments in trying to develop a shell which will 
not "skid" or glance off the armor of vessels. 
The power in the shell or momentum and weight 
are amply sufficient to penetrate the heavy steel 
plates if the blow can be concentrated, and this 
they have accomplished by putting a soft nose 
around the point of the shell. The same princi- 
ple governs the contact of the ball on the face of 
the cleek and other irons, and to pick a ball off the 
turf clean requires an exactness of skill which is 
beyond the ability of even the professionals, and 
they would get but a small part of the power into 
the ball if they used that method. 

I have shown in the diagram on page 181 (Posi- 
tion 2) the grass piled up in front of the ball but 
not that which the club picks up on each side. 
When it is considered how quickly the grass is 
cut and packed on each side of the ball it will be 
readily understood what a brace or support is 
given to prevent any of the power being wasted 
by the ball sliding sideways in either direction. 
Also it will be noticed that if there is any slipping 
or yielding up or down it will not be up because 

185 



GOLF 

the face of the club is inclined forward. This is 
the reason that so much more power is transferred 
to the ball when taking turf as against picking 
the ball off the ground clear. 

It should be borne in mind that this extra power 
comes purely from the method of making the shot 
and by reason of the action of the grass or turf 
and not from an extra heave in the swing. I 
have already drawn attention to the fact that the 
club shaft is shorter than that of the driver, 
thereby reducing the leverage of the club and 
making it possible to get up speed very quickly. 
This should be kept in mind because the pre- 
vailing fault of the majority of golfers is "hit- 
ting too soon." Then the fact that the club is 
designed to enable the player to swing faster, as 
the blow must be sharper than with a wooden 
club, should warn the player to use every en- 
deavor to hold back and not make such an effort 
as he would with a wooden shot, where it requires 
more strength. 

The very fact that an iron shot is required is 
sufficient evidence that the time for greater accu- 
racy is at hand, and there is no hope for the player 

186 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

who is trying to make "beef" or brute strength 
do what he should use a wooden shot for. The 
day the player masters his desire for distance 
with cleek shots is the day he begins to bring 
them off. 

Previous chapters have demonstrated that hit- 
ting too hard is the cause of "hitting too soon," 
and as the length of the club shaft enables the 
player to swing a cleek faster than a driver it is 
sure that the fault of "hitting too soon" is 
emphasized by the average player in consequence. 
This fact when properly driven home should con- 
vince him that it should "feel" as though he is 
not making enough effort when he is swinging 
correctly. There is little chance that the player 
has not made his maximum effort heretofore, and 
if he has the proper mental equipment it should 
be possible for him to go out the next time he 
tries his cleek and swing freely and easily with 
his whole mind given to seeing his ball clearly 
from the start of his swing until he connects with 
the ball, never shifting his glance for an instant. 

One thing I have found to be of assistance to 
me in getting the power into a cleek shot is to 

187 



GOLF 

forget that I have hands and attempt to hit with 
the shoulders. In other words, when you start 
down toward your ball let the shoulders lean on 
the ball, so to speak, and have your hands drag 
along behind. Do not attempt to control the 
club with the hands so much, but allow the shoul- 
ders to get into the stroke. Put your entire at- 
tention upon keeping your head still and swing 
easily, almost lazily. 

Very few players really use a cleek at the right 
time. In the majority of cases they should take 
their brassey, because the distance they are try- 
ing for is beyond their skill with a cleek. To 
use a cleek well it is essential that the player be 
sure of his line, and if he is not he had much bet- 
ter play a brassey and take it more easily. The 
trouble is that a player who is master of a cleek 
will reach a green of say one hundred and eighty 
to two hundred yards with a fine line to the pin ; 
and then because he has done so, another player 
standing by who uses a cleek indifferently will 
attempt the same shot when the distance is beyond 
him. It is a peculiar fact that players keep try- 
ing to force themselves beyond their capacity, and 

188 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

there seems to be a tendency on the part of all 
players in the early stages of the game to try to 
make up in Brute strength what they lack in 
skill. 

.There are varieties of shots which it is possible 
to bring off with the cleek, such as hooked shots, 
sliced shots, push shots, etc., but I consider that it 
would only confuse beginners to mention them 
at this time. The finest shot of all is the one 
which goes on a dead straight line for the pin 
and never wavers in its flight. It is the only one 
which the beginner should attempt. In learning 
it he will perform the first two I speak of and will 
be able to play them when necessary once he has 
mastered the perfectly straight ball. 

The best professional in the field would find it 
extremely difficult to bring off a shot with the 
complicated scheme of the average amateur. 
The average amateur has too many things on his 
mind. He is fearful he will not hit his ball, and 
immediately begins a series of maneuvers which 
usually accomplish the very thing he is most 
anxious to avoid. If you keep your head still 
every instant occupied in making your swing, so 

189 



GOLF 

as to see the Ball clearly, and do not try to kill it, 
but merely swing in an easy, comfortable manner, 
you will find that it will accomplish more than 
hours spent upon your grip, your stance, or the 
hundred things the average player has on his 
mind. 

I do not mean to hurry your stroke, but I do 
think that a player's common sense should tell 
him that he is tiring his muscles by posing in front 
of his ball and destroying the very elements which 
bring off the shot successfully. The professional 
has no finer brain capacity than the amateur, and 
golf is not a brain fatiguing pastime. The diffi- 
culty is that the player endeavors to make a brain- 
racking game of it instead of a muscular exer- 
cise where the freedom of the play of the muscles 
is cultivated. Perseverance on a rigid, fixed 
method of play is not evidence of a superior 
quality of mind, but of pig-headedness. 

Remember I do not urge that you use my 
schemes of play, but I am calling attention to 
facts which cannot be ignored. Golf is only a 
very difficult game because players make it so. 
The reforms in your method of play must be 

190 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

thought out at times when you are not trying to 
hit a ball, when your whole attention should be 
devoted to seeing clearly every instant what you 
are trying to hit. All your calculations are 
based upon the idea that you hit your ball true, 
and when you do not do this the remedy is not 
in making more calculations. Cut out some of! 
them and concentrate upon the simplest. 

Back of all bad shots is the monumental ego- 
tism which makes you believe you can make up 
in effort what you lack in skill. If you get only 
fifty yards and can put it where you intend to 
you are master of that shot. The foolish desire 
to equal a more experienced and skilful player 
will be your master if you will allow it. Per- 
severance and patience will accomplish what you 
desire. 

The particular point to which I wish to call 
players' attention in playing the cleek is the mat- 
ter of how the effort should "feel" when properly 
played. The real gage of the effort you can 
make successfully is your ability to keep your 
eyes on the ball without shifting the glance for 
the slightest instant. When you make the stroke 

191 



GOLF 

and accomplish this it "feels" as though you 
would never get any distance at all. As a matter 
of fact it is one of the most difficult clubs to learn 
for this very reason. It does not seem as though 
you could obtain anything like the distance with 
a cleek when played this way that you do with the 
brassey because it "feels" so differently, but 
learn to swing very easily with your cleek and 
hit the ball absolutely true and it will soon con- 
vince you what wonderful distance the little ap- 
parent effort gives. 

The effort, as a matter of fact, is the same. 
The same amount of energy is generated by an 
effort which "feels" in the case of the cleek about 
one-half of what you use in the brassey shot. 
The reason is that the club shaft, being shorter, 
responds more quickly to the effort and as the 
swing itself is shorter, or should be, there is no 
strain upon the body and legs to get to the top 
of the swing as in the wooden shots, and this 
makes it "feel" that you are not applying enough 
power. When you realize fully that the swing 
is so much faster with the cleek than with the 
wooden shots, it should bring home the fact that 

192 




Address With Mid-Iron and Cleek for the Squeeze 

Shot. Note That the Lowest Point in the Swing 

Will Be Ahead of the Ball. 



PLAYIXG THE CLEEK 

you are very; likely to get the club to the ball 
with the arms alone, ahead of the heavy 
muscles of the back and shoulders. There is no 
earthly use, as I explained in discussing the 
wooden shots, in trying to have the arms do the 
work. There is not enough power in them. Un- 
less the heavy and slower-moving muscles get into 
the stroke you will get no distance. 

I give here my scheme of addressing the ball, 
which is the simplest I can devise for my own 
use. I stand with my right foot advanced a little 
more than in the address with the driver because 
I wish to shorten my swing a little. The hands 
are to the left of the center line, or line between 
the eyes and the ball, and I assume that stance 
because it brings the pivotal center between the 
shoulders and the hands exactly opposite the 
lowest point in the sweep, which is about four to 
five inches ahead of the ball as it is shown. In 
making the stroke shown in the photograph oppo- 
site page 200, showing the follow through, the 
tape shown was cut in two about four inches ahead 
of the center line, after connecting with the ball. 
In other words, I get my distance entirely on the 

193 



I 



GOLF 

first bounce and not on the carry. As the ball 
is driven downward against the turf the carry is 
about two inches and the bulk of the distance 
is obtained on the first rebound. When the 
ball is picked off the turf the carry is greatest. 

The difference is that the club head stays 
against the ball at right angles to the direction the 
power is being applied during the carry and part 
of the rebound, making a longer period of con- 
tact which gives an additional quantity of energy. 
Remember that this extra energy is not applied 
by an extra effort but purely from the way you 
play it. You are merely applying the energy to 
better advantage. 

One mistake that a great many golfers make 
is in taking their gage from the top of the club 
instead of the bottom. All iron clubs I have seen 
are wider at the toe than at the heel, and this 
makes it look as though the club was facing much 
farther to the right than it really does. It should 
be remembered also that the bottom of the swing 
is ahead of the ball and that the hands are to 
turn the face of the club in as the ball is in con- 
tact with it, until the club face is at exact right 

194 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

angles to the line of flight at the point where the 
ball leaves the club head. If the ball is addressed 
with the club face at exact right angles to the 
line of flight, it will hook the ball to the left if 
the hands are turned properly, and if they are not 
turned the ball is bound to be sliced. 

In observing a good professional player you 
can always get the angles he uses if you will get 
in a position in direct line with a line drawn be- 
tween his eyes and the ball. You will note that 
he has his hands to the left of such a line if you 
are behind him and to the right of that line if 
viewed from in front of him. The bulk of the 
weight when on the flat of the feet is directly op- 
posite the point at the lowest part of the sweep 
and where it will do the most good. 

In making this stroke or any other stj T le of 
stroke, remember that unless the club head is 
traveling along the line of flight while in contact 
with the ball, the ball won't go along that line, 
and your entire effort is simplified if you can 
stretch the length of the arc of travel in order 
that the timing may be easier. In other words, 
the longer you can make the club head travel 

195 



GOLF 

along that line the surer you will be of the ball 
going along the same line. Also, if the hands 
are not moving parallel with that line the club 
head cannot stay upon that line. This should 
enable the player to work out his own scheme to 
accomplish the purpose. 

In practicing with the cleek I have found it 
to be a very decided advantage to practice hitting 
the ball true in the center of the club face and 
make no attempt to get over fifty to seventy-five 
yards. If you will have a piece of soft chalk 
handy and chalk the face of the club you will be 
able to observe just where you connect with the 
ball and soon get the gage. It is as necessary 
to educate the muscles to the correct gage as the 
eyes, because the eyes must be governed by the 
muscles in the end. It is no easy matter to hit 
a cleek shot perfectly true for even that distance, 
as the player will soon learn when he tries it. 

I have found in my own case that when driving 
the ball with the cleek a distance of, say, fifty 
yards, I let the weight of the club alone do the 
work and merely guide it. This is fine practice 
in learning to turn the hands over correctly as 

196 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

well as in grazing the turf after hitting down- 
ward through the ball. There is not much of 
a divot taken ; it is more as though you were cut- 
ting the grass off at the roots after going 
through the ball. No attempt should be made to 
send the ball high, because that will take care of 
itself when you hit harder. In addition to this 
I practice with the idea of letting my arms swing 
freely and make no attempt to use the body. 
The idea in this is to accustom the arms to work 
correctly in guiding the club and swinging 
smoothly. Then when I have succeeded in train- 
ing the muscles to the correct swing and rhythm 
of the stroke, I find that it comes perfectly nat- 
ural to get away a fine, long, low ball with a 
tremendous run. 

I notice that I soon acquire the habit of watch- 
ing my ball intently until the club head meets it, 
and I also find that I get the best results when I 
keep my head absolutely rigid. This was the 
scheme which made me learn to rely upon the 
cleek, and when it is properly used it will totally 
outclass any spoon shot ever invented. A spoon 
is not versatile. You cannot play a fine low ball 

197 



GOLF 

into the wind with it nor will it get you out of 
the difficult lies with the accuracy that a cleek will. 
Because a player may get a better ball with a 
spoon is no evidence that the spoon is the better 
club inherently. It shows only that the player 
has not learned his cleek. Once master your cleek 
and you can play all the other irons without any 
[trouble. Using the spoon necessitates the same 
Care and attention that would be used to master 
the next iron in line, and that is the midiron. 
In mjr own experience I have never seen a spoon 
player who played a really fine midiron shot. 
[There was always a tendency to get a bad line. 

Every player of experience has of course re- 
marked the great difference between the pro- 
fessionals and the amateurs, and it is in the irons 
that the former excel so markedly. A cleek in 
their hands is as accurate and will put the ball 
against the pin as well as the midiron or mashie, 
and when it is considered that it is in the distance 
they; are designed to send the ball and not direc- 
tion that they differ, the player will grasp the 
fact that he is wofully lacking when he cannot 
put the cleek on as good a line as he would the 

198 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

mashie. In fact, the mashie is the more difficult 
club inherently to control. 

Players who know can tell you that they can- 
not force a mashie shot and keep their line, but 
these same players are not aware, practically, that 
they force both their midiron and cleek. If they 
were to use the same self-control in playing their 
cleek that they do in playing their mashie they 
would quickly see how much they are forcing 
their cleek shots. The same easy swing they use 
on their mashie would give them a beautiful long 
ball, purely from the difference in the design of 
the club, due to the greater leverage and the 
straight face. Every one knows how easily he 
can get one hundred yards with a mashie, and 
yet it cannot be brought home that the same 
effort exactly will produce with a cleek from fifty 
to ninety yards more, simply from the design of 
the club. It does not require one ounce more 
power. 

A fact that I would like to draw attention to 
in playing the cleek, and it is the same exactly 
with the other irons, is the matter of the fore- 
arms and wrists and the greater extent to which 

199 



GOLF 

these enter into the playing of irons than with 
the wooden shots. The wooden shots are 
really sweep strokes, with the forearm doing 
comparatively little work at the instant 
of contact with the ball, while with irons 
it is the forearms which put the ginger into the 
stroke at the last instant ; this is because turf must 
be taken and the shorter circle is necessary. 
By this I mean that in the wooden shots, 
with the club once under way, it is as though the 
arms were flabby or held loosely, and the swing 
made from the shoulder with the arms just sweep- 
ing along to keep up with the club head, while 
with irons the arms are held a little more firmly 
or the muscles tightened slightly so that a sharper 
and shorter circle can be performed by pivoting 
the bulk of the stroke upon the left wrist. 

It is as though the circle or sweep was being 
performed with the club only, with the circle 
pivoting upon the left wrist while you sweep the 
arms along only enough to bring the hands into 
position as the club head reaches the ball. The 
reason for doing this is that you use, or should 
use, a shorter swing with irons, as your shaft is 

200 




Follow Through with the Cleek, Using the Squeeze 



/ 



Shot. (See Page 193) 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

shorter than with wooden clubs and you can get 
up speed more quickly with the same amount of 
energy. The shorter swing enables you to be 
more accurate since your weight is on both feet 
longer because you do not have to turn so far 
around. 

If you will take the trouble to observe the 
average professional's forearm development you 
will know that the forearms are doing a great deal 
of work. The forearms of the average amateur 
are used mostly in a death grip upon the club 
and their power is not utilized in making the 
short circle I have just described. Stiff arms but 
flexible wrists make for good iron play. Meet- 
ing the turf with stiffened wrists means a great 
shock to the frame, and the natural result is that 
the player on his next attempt tries to "pick" the 
ball off the turf, and I have already demonstrated 
that this is not only the hardest way because of 
the greater accuracy required, but it is absolutely 
impossible to get as long a ball, as it bounces 
away quicker. The resultant lack of distance 
means an almost sure attempt to swing harder in 
the next shot to get more distance, and the in- 

201 



GOLF 

evitable result of that is failure to hit the ball 
true. 

Now the rule in the playing of irons is to keep 
the wrists limber and free, while in the sweep 
stroke with wooden clubs the reverse is the case; 
the wrists should be stiff to make one continuous 
shaft from shoulder to club head. 

The reason, in my opinion, why so few 
amateurs play the cleek well is because they at- 
tempt to play with stiffened wrists, as they would 
with the wooden shots. Another reason is that 
they do not use light enough clubs. A heavy 
cleek is hard to swing fast with the forearms, be- 
cause they are not strong enough to keep the club 
up with the shoulders and when a player once 
"feels" this he tries to swing as he does with the 
heavier wooden clubs. It is a peculiar fact, and 
yet not peculiar if you analyze it, that players who 
use light clubs are much more inclined to depend 
upon the forearms than those who use the heavy 
ones, and the reason is obvious. 

Another item which should not be lost sight of 
is the fact that the wrists are not covered with 
muscles at all but are made principally of bone, 

202 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

ligaments and tendons; and the muscles which 
hold the wrists firm are located in the forearm. 
Therefore, if you stiffen any of the muscles of 
the forearm you have no play, and if you have 
no play of those muscles the forearms do not enter 
into the stroke and you are compelled to fall back 
entirely upon the twist of the body when you do 
not need any such great amount of power. You 
need only a small part of the twist of the body, 
because the speed of the club depends upon your 
ability to get the club into position. 

The fact is that you need but a very short twist 
of the body and a good stiff dose of forearms to 
make up for the slow-moving body. This can 
only be accomplished with free and active play of 
the muscles of the forearms. You can get much 
more power from the twist of the body than from 
any other source, but it does not move fast enough 
for cleek play when not supported by the fore- 
arms. The forearms act as the transformer, 
changing the low voltage, powerful current of 
the slow-moving body and arms into high tension 
current and speed when transmitted to the club 
shaft. Let this matter sink into your under- 

203 



GOLF 

standing of cleek and iron play and you will have 
learned one of the best ways to keep your head 
still when you are playing irons. 

With the majority of beginners the effort to 
"kill" the ball begins even before the club reaches 
the top of the swing as the club is on its way up- 
ward, and their bodies have made the effort before 
the fingers and forearms can get the club started 
downward again. As the greatest power is in 
the body they naturally try to use that first, and 
in nine cases out of ten they use more power than 
their grip of fingers can transmit to the club. 
Naturally the club head lags behind the point 
where it should be when the great power of the 
legs, back, and shoulders is applied. The entire 
effort should "feel" to be in the hands, as the 
body travels comparatively slowly in following 
around, because it is in the hands that the greatest 
strain at any one point is felt. Any sudden jerk 
or extra effort made with the body will apply 
power out of all proportion to the strength of 
the fingers to transmit it. Therefore, it 
inevitably follows that nothing like the full 

204 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

strength can possibly be used, due to this propor- 
tionate weakness in the fingers. 

If the right hand was grasping the club half 
way down the shaft with the left hand at the end 
of the grip it would be possible to use the greatest 
amount of power in twisting the body around, 
just as this strength is used in swinging a pickax. 
But with a golf club the hands are close together, 
and the power applied with the legs, back, and 
shoulders that you would use in swinging a 
pickax is so totally out of proportion to the ability 
of the hands to transmit under the circumstances, 
that the stroke must inevitably be ruined. If you 
were to swing a pickax with the hands grasping 
the handle at the end, close together, and start to 
bring it to the top of the swing as you do in golf, 
you would be quickly convinced, when you 
reached the top and started to bring it down again 
suddenly, how little power proportionately you 
have in the hands; yet golfers are trying all the 
time to make the same amount of exertion with 
their legs, back and shoulders that they would 
in swinging a pickax and then marvel at the 

205 



GOLF 

difficulty in getting off a long ball, when the 
whole effort is wasted because the club head does 
not meet the ball true. 

Keep the forearms and wrist as flexible as pos- 
sible, and you will be astonished to find how little 
power is required of the body. It is easy and 
very comfortable and you quickly learn the 
valuable lesson of hitting the ball accurately, be- 
cause as your body is so well under control you 
have no difficulty in keeping your balance, and 
that means your head has a good chance to keep 
from swaying, and naturally your eyes see the 
ball so much more clearly that it is comparatively 
easy to hit it very true. Then you will begin to 
get the distance. As a matter of fact the play- 
ing of irons requires no such effort as the wooden 
shots, and the great difficulty, as I have said be- 
fore, is in keeping from swinging or twisting the 
body too fast. The principle of the stroke is 
different and it is more like the game of "crack 
the whip," which the boys play. The entire 
energy is transmitted to the club head and it is 
more than sufficient if you connect with the ball 
accurately. A point to remember is the matter of 

206 



PLAYING THE CLEEK 

moving the hands along parallel with the ball 
after you first connect with it in order to keep the 
face of the club at right angles and the club head 
on the line of flight. 



207 



THE MIDIRON SHOT 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE MIDIKON SHOT 

FIRST cousin to the cleek is the midiron, 
and yet the master of the former may 
have something to learn about the use of 
the latter. In the diagram I show how the mid- 
iron is used by the professionals and all those who 
"take turf" after "going through" the ball. A 
thing which has a most decided influence upon the 
ball is the fact that the club face is more at right 
angles or less lofted in relation to the ground and 
meets the ball at the same angle or loft that the 
driver does and naturally a longer ball results. 
The ball is lifted or sent into the air by its re- 
bound from the "springy" turf, due in part to the 
fact that the club is coming downward, forcing 
the ball against the ground, and partly to the 
fact that, the ball, being collapsed or compressed, 
as shown in position 2, the natural expansion of 
the ends, especially the lower end, for it becomes 

211 



GOLF 

an oval, meets with resistance which upon reaction 
emphasizes the bounce upward. Besides this you 
have the pressure under the ball of the turf, 
which has been cut, forcing the ball up sharply, 
which aids materially in overcoming the back 
spin. 




Tke Oftuwia SWX 



In playing this shot the player must remember 
that instead of looking at the ball and taking the 
gage of it as though he were driving it up, he 
must realize that it should look to him as though 
he were actually driving the ball into the ground 
four or five inches ahead of position 1, and in 
order to make the shot successfully he must really 
try to accomplish this. By noting the dotted line 
T, which shows the line of travel of the ball, you 
will see that the ball does actually start down, but 

212 



THE MIDIRON SHOT 

it bounces away and forward before the club 
comes up again. The club still keeps onward and 
down until it reaches position 3. The idea should 
be to cut into the earth below the roots of the 
grass but lightly and not to bury the club into 
the turf after hitting the ball. 

The whole success of the stroke depends upon 
the player connecting with the ball before the club 
reaches the bottom of the swing in order that the 
lowest point in the swing will be about four or five 
inches ahead of the ball. 

The club, while being faced off to the right in 
the address, must be turned in as well, and if the 
illustration is viewed as though dotted line A, 
showing the arc of the club, was running parallel 
with the printing upon this page, he will see that 
it makes a new base line, which will give the same 
view of the club and ball as in the "picked shot." 
The difference in the scheme of play, however, is 
that here you have the whole width of the club 
face to allow for error instead of one-quarter of 
an inch, as you have in the "picked shot." The 
ball can be practically half topped, and yet go off 
on a good line, because the ground forces the ball 

213 



GOLF 

up on to the center of the club face before the 
club reaches position 3. If you come down too 
low to the ball the shot will not be badly spoiled, 
because much of the power will be transmitted to 
the ball before the club meets the earth. You will 
not get quite as much distance, but that will be the 
only difference. 

A large part of the difference between profes- 
sionals and amateurs in playing this club is in 
the matter of direction. No stronger object les- 
son can be had than to notice the painstaking, 
careful finish to the stroke when the professional 
makes his shot and the reckless heave for distance 
of the amateur. The predominating idea of each 
player is plain to be seen. One tries solely for 
direction and the other only for distance. If the 
ball goes straight it is an accident in the latter 
case. Even those players who hit the ball are ap- 
parently satisfied if they come within twenty 
yards of the line aimed at. 

The general trouble is the foolish pride players 
seem to take in reaching a green with the midiron, 
when in reality it is a cleek shot, with great care 
to be dead on the line. Of course it is possible 

214 



THE MIDIRON SHOT 

to reach a green many times with a midiron by 
forcing it, where you can reach the same green 
and be sure of your direction by using a cleek. 
A midiron was originally designed to obtain one 
hundred and thirty-five yards with the old hard 
ball, and because the ball has become livelier play- 
ers seem to feel that they should get one hundred 
and eighty to two hundred yards with the same 
club. So they can, but there is no merit in so 
forcing the club. 

To bring this lesson home, the next time you go 
out on the course observe the results that players 
get and you will find ninety per cent of midiron 
shots are short, most of them never reaching the 
green, and the next point you will notice is that 
they are away off the line as well as short. 
If you will try the experiment of using your 
cleek every time you think you have a full midiron 
shot and put your attention to hitting your ball 
absolutely true you will make a curious discovery ; 
not five per cent of a hundred shots will be over, 
and of that five per cent not one-half will be as 
far over as you are accustomed to be short with 
your midiron. 

215 



GOLF 

Players will often boast that they have reached 
a certain green with a drive and a midiron, when 
the real point is that they were so surprised at the 
fact themselves that it was worthy of comment. 
How much oftener they will reach that same 
green easily with a drive and a cleek, and not be 
required to force either shot. It is the number 
of strokes used in playing a hole and not the 
number of yards that counts. I know from expe- 
rience that the tendency is to try for distance, and 
only repeated failures have driven home the les- 
son that it is the accuracy you obtain in playing 
whatever distance you are capable of which makes 
lower scores. When you comment upon a really 
well-played hole, one which leaves the most last- 
ing impression, the real fact is that you have 
placed your iron shot close enough to get down in 
one putt. No one cares whether you used a 
mashie or a cleek. 

How many times a player will take a club to 
play safe — to avoid the risk of getting into a 
bunker, say — and then swing easily and carefully 
at the ball, hit it perfectly true, and find himself 
in the very difficulty he was trying to avoid! 

216 



THE MIDIRON SHOT 

This has Happened to many players, and their sur- 
prise is usually very great. They say : "Why, I 
played that safe on purpose, and there I am in the 
bunker." The fact is that the player is not 
familiar with the distance he obtains with a cor- 
rectly hit ball. He so seldom hits a ball really 
true that he is not accustomed to see it go so 
far. 

That is the one thing to learn, hit the ball true ! 
It doesn't make much difference whether your 
grip is right or wrong according to some theories, 
or whether your swing is upright or flat, if the 
club meets the ball with the center of the face, 
that ball is going to go off pretty well. 

I have observed that those players who have 
trouble in playing the midiron will invariably try 
to pick the ball up or off the ground clean, with 
the idea of not injuring the turf. Many players 
who get off a fairly good ball, but with a slice, 
have the same mental picture or they would not 
swing as they do. I have shown how the "squeeze 
shot," as I call that which takes turf after going 
through the ball, should be played. For the bene- 
fit of those who want an easy scheme for play- 

2171 



GOLF 



ing it I have made a sketch of what they should 
try to do. The idea is to let them play the shot 
as they are accustomed to do in every detail except 
that of purpose. That purpose should be to drive 
the ball into the ground, as is shown in posi- 
tion 3. The ball is supposed to be held up by 
the grass, and the only object the player should 
have in mind is to drive the ball into the ground 



/ > 

/ / 




WW* 



"' » - — ~ I t 

ft — ^> I • ^*"^ 

l if A 



^^^^Z 



as suggested. The ball will actually follow along 
the dotted line which shows its flight, but that 
should not alter the player's purpose. 

The great difficulty with players is that they 
cannot bring themselves to believe that the ball 
will get up, and at the last instant, before hitting 
it, they change their purpose and try to hit up. 
Any one can see this by watching a player who 
has trouble with his midiron. This is a habit 

218 



THE MIDIRON SHOT 

which has been so firmly imbedded in the minds 
of most golfers that they cannot seem to overcome 
it. It is a persistent enemy of all the iron shots, 
and unless a player firmly decides to actually 
drive that ball down, he will find that the old de- 
sire to hit up will be too strong to be resisted. 
All the things which happen to the ball should be 
eliminated from the mind ; the scheme of play will 
take care of the shot. 

Do not try to see all the steps in the stroke. 
Make your swing freely and do not spare the 
turf. Hit the ball clean and true and you can- 
not possibly make any mistake. Remember that 
the fact that you take turf is no excuse for hitting 
harder for the reason that at the time the turf 
begins to stop your club the ball is away on its 
journey. It will feel as though it needed more 
power but it does not. The scheme gives a great 
deal more leeway for the shot to be brought off in 
the first place and there is nothing in the blow 
being delivered which requires more power. The 
same thing I have spoken of before, regarding 
accuracy giving distance, applies here, as in fact 
to every club in the bag. If you are to get the 

219 



GOLF, 

ball up you must make your stroke down as I 
show in the cut; otherwise the shot will be of no 
value. Midiron shots will never be well played 
by a player who is afraid of spoiling the turf. 



220 



WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THE 
MID IRON 



CHAPTER XV 

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THE MIDIRON 

WHEN it is considered how the first in- 
structions a player receives become 
fixed in his mind it is no wonder that 
one of the most useful midiron shots in the entire 
list is neglected. That shot is the "running-up" 

I approach. When the average player initiates a 
friend he usually advises him to take a mashie for 
all short shots, but those who have cultivated the 
"running-up" approach with the midiron have 
been well paid for their pains, and it is astonish- 
ing how few players realize that the shot is safer 
and easier than with the mashie. In only one 
case, that is when the nature of the ground ahead 
of the player absolutely compels a pitched shot, is 
the mashie more useful. When the player finds 
himself short or over the green with nothing in- 
tervening, and from forty yards down from the 
pin, he will have occasion to utilize this shot. 

223 



GOLF 

The same mechanical principles which govern 
the full "squeeze shot," which I have described, 
obtain with the shorter shot. That is, the idea 
must be to drive the ball downward against the 
turf and the ball will rise upon the rebound and 
run along over any kind of ground with the 
greatest tenacity to hold its line. This is due to 
the forward twist, as a result of the drag put upon 
the under side of the ball by the ground while in 
contact with it in the initial part of the journey. 
It should be remembered that the ball is not com- 
pressed to the same extent as when it is hit harder, 
and that in consequence it will not rise much, but 
will gain its distance from the roll. 

Reference to the diagram of the squeeze shot 
on page 212 will serve to illustrate the method of 
playing this shot, but the club does not go into 
the turf so deep. At the moment of striking the 
ball the face of the club turns away to the right 
of the desired line a little and as the ball leaves 
the club the club face is at exact right angles 
to the desired direction. The toe of the club is 
not stopped there, however, but continues the 
turn which brought it at right angles when the 

224 





Address for the Running Up Shot With the Mid-Iron. 




Top of Swing for Running Up Shot With the Mid- 
Iron. The Club Is Dragged Forward Rather 
Than Pivoted at the Wrists and Comes Down 
Mostly of Its Own Weight. 




Striking the Ball in Running Up Shot With Mid- 
Iron. The Effort Is Made Downward and 
the Club Does the Work. 




Finish of Running Up Shot With Mid-Iron. Note 
That the Toe of the Club Is Pointing Up. 



THE MIDIRON 

ball left the club. There is only one point which 
should be watched carefully, and that is to have 
the toe of the club point down more than in the 
ordinary method of playing it, because this gives 
the hands a chance to lend greater delicacy to the 
shot. 

The player will find from experience that he 
has far more of a tendency to look up than with 
any other shot, and a good thing to remember in 
playing all shots is to keep the head absolutely 
still and never allow the eye to leave the ball for 
an instant until the club head meets it. There 
is always more anxiety to see where the ball is 
going on a short shot than on a long one, because 
the short shot is played at a more critical time 
and when the winner of the hole is soon to be 
determined. There are more things to be con- 
sidered as well, because the player is using his 
club with a greater proportionate range than 
when playing a club to its maximum distance. 
Besides this, the distance the club is traveling 
through its sweep or arc is consuming much more 
time than the same distance with the same club 
consumes in a full shot. 

225 



GOLF 

The common fault with all players is in hur- 
rying the stroke. The stroke is delicate and 
should be played with much of the pendulum 
idea, the same as with a putter. Accuracy in 
hitting is the keynote of success with this short 
shot. 

I have learned from experience that "half -top- 
ping" is the fault which happens most, on a short, 
running-up shot, as sclaffing is on a short pitched 
shot, and that a scheme to prevent these faults 
is a great help in inspiring confidence and even 
in bringing off the shot although anxiety does 
make the player look up too soon. For instance, 
if the player can assume some stance or attitude 
whereby he cannot swing over his ball, or even 
go above a certain point, that is an advantage. 
As most of the power in a short shot comes from 
the weight of the club alone and the distance back 
it is lifted, it should be an easy matter for the 
player to devise some scheme which will make 
it extremely awkward to use the arms and hands 
for anything else than lifting the club and guid- 
ing it again. 

In my own case I use the elbow of my right 

226 



THE MIDIRON 

arm as the pivot of the stroke, bringing my elbow 
close to my side. This prevents shifting the 
pivot of the stroke. As the lowest point in a 
vertical circle will always be exactly opposite and 
at right angles to the pivot, it is necessary, if the 
club is to strike the ball before that lowest point 
is reached, that the pivot be located ahead of the 
ball as in all the other shots. The player must 
bear in mind that all these factors are solved when 
you take your stance. Your purpose, as I have 
previously explained, must be to hit the ball down 
against the ground. Do not jerk the club at the 
ball, but let it come down freely with its own 
weight. You will then educate your muscles to 
the "feel" of the correct amount of back swing to 
obtain a given distance. 

You will find from experience that you will 
always look up the instant you have made your 
effort, whether it is a short shot or a full shot, 
and this is a fact which few players have ever 
considered. It is an involuntary action. Mak- 
ing the effort too soon results in looking up too 
soon, and it is the cause of more strokes added to 
one's score than all other causes combined. Mak- 

227 



GOLF 

ing the effort too soon is in itself the result of 
trying to hit too hard and not waiting for the club 
to do the work. The mental discipline necessary 
to hold one's self in check is the thing to be 
sought after. Hit the ball true in the center of 
the club face a few times and your confidence in 
yourself will come quickly. 



Figure 1 

Absolute freedom and comfort are essential in 
the stroke, and nothing approaching stiffness 
must be introduced at any point. Practice alone 
will accomplish this, and the whole operation must 
be an endeavor to keep the club perfectly bal- 
anced and poised throughout. Avoid timidity in 
hitting and strike firmly, but not hard. 

Among the very useful shots which it is pos- 

228 



THE MIDIRON 

sible to play with the midiron — and that is the 
best club to get distance — is that out of water. 
This shot gives a nice little problem to be solved, 
if it is played successfully. It is well known that 
water is incompressible, but at the same time it 
is very fluid. By referring to figure 1, you will 
observe that the aim and sweep of the club are as 




Figure 2 

though you were going to half top the ball and 
first meet the water about two inches back of it. 
The result of the blow against the water is to 
make the water in front of the club rise to a 
higher level with a very sharp jump, and no mat- 
ter how fast the club is moving, the water will 
jump up and carry the ball with it with an equal 
speed. 

229 



GOLF 

In addition to the wave created ahead of it by 
the club, the pressure of the water in every direc- 
tion, forcing up to replace that which is splashed 
in the air, causes the ball to move with it to meet 
the club and intensifies the blow which is being re- 
duced by the resistance of the water. By the time 
the club actually reaches the spot formerly occu- 
pied by the ball these various forces have jumped 
the ball up so that it is practically suspended for 
an instant in the direct path of the center of the 
club face, but there is yet considerable speed and 
power to the club, and the ball will go forward 
about fifty to seventy-five yards if the shot is 
well played. The success of the shot depends 
upon striking the water at the right point, neither 
too far back of the ball nor too near it. In the 
former case too much water will be taken and the 
ball will jump up so high that the club will come 
under it, and in the latter case the ball will actu- 
ally be half -topped. The correct distance is 
about two to three inches back of the ball, and the 
player should endeavor to skim off about a half 
inch of the water ahead of it. 

The blow must not be delivered with a cut as 

230 



THE MIDIRON 

though you were cutting into the water with the 
bottom edge of the club, but should be as though 
you were trying to see how far you could plow 
along the surface of the water with the club sunk 
about a half inch into it. Taking too much water 
will kill the force of the blow, while too little will 
not jump the ball up high enough to meet it 
squarely. Study the illustrations carefully and 
you will get the right idea. 

The follow through is of the very greatest im- 
portance, and to make the shot successfully the 
player must not fear being splashed. Above all 
else, it is important to keep the head still in order 
to see that you hit the correct distance back of 
the ball. By tilting the mashie or niblick so 
that the club face is presented at the same angle 
as the cut, or at right angles to the surface of the 
water, the same shot can be played with those 
clubs, but the shot is not as sure, because the tend- 
ency is to go under the ball, as these two clubs 
feed into the water too quickly, too much water 
is taken, and the ball jumps over the club head. 
Hit hard and freely. 

Perhaps one of the most important shots which 

231 



GOLF 

the midiron is called upon to play is when the ball 
is lying in long grass, from four to eight inches 
tall, and when it is not too heavy with clover or 
too thick and matted ; that, for instance, which is 
most common upon our average American course. 
It is an absolute fluke in the majority of cases 
when the beginner manages to get his ball out 
at all with his midiron played in the ordinary 
manner. 

Played as though the ball was lying on the fair 
green, where you can get at it, and this is the 
usual way the shot is played, you have no chance, 
for a great number of reasons. In the first place, 
the eye unconsciously guides the club too high in 
order not to hit the surface of the ground, which 
it sees in the form of grass much higher than the 
ball. It is presumed, of course, that the player 
is looking at his ball in a general way, because 
he is endeavoring to get it out of the grass. If 
the club does get down to the ball it cannot be 
struck with the face, because there is three-quar- 
ters of an inch of grass between the ball and it, 
and because the grass is actually being folded over 
the ball and preventing its rise. 

232 



L THE midiron 

Besides this, the club face being brought 
straight down through the grass offers its full 
width to the resistance. Furthermore the angle 
at which the shaft of the club is going through 
enables the grass to wind itself around the shank 
of the club, twisting it in the bands, no matter 
how strong the grip. This turns the face of the 
club in still more and absolutely kills any chance 
of getting the ball out. The result of this scheme 
of play is that the ball jumps ahead a yard or two 
and the operation is continued. The same result 
often happens almost to the same degree with the 
mashie. 

Naturally the common sense of the player will 
convince him after a few trials that he has not a 
chance of getting much power to the ball with the 
club head attempting to pull up all the grass by 
the roots which it meets on its sweep along the 
ground. But he need not despair. There is a 
way, and a very practicable way, of playing the 
midiron out of rough. 

In the first place, if you will make the experi- 
ment of hitting down on the grass in a perpendic- 
ular direction you will find that it offers little or 

233 



GOLF 

no resistance to the club. If you will swing 
through the grass with the face of the club drag- 
ging behind the shank, parallel with the direction 
the club is traveling, you will find that the club 
will plough through pretty easily. These two 
facts should indicate that if there is to be much 
power and speed carried to the ball the blow must 
be a combination of these two factors ; that is, the 
predominating effort must be to strike the grass 
in a direction that will meet with the least resist- 
ance, and that is downward, and not forward. 

In any case the blow must be struck so as not 
to fold the grass over upon the ball, and this is 
bound to be done unless the grass for about four 
inches back of the ball is cut off at the roots by 
the sharp edge of the club when it is about to 
meet the ball. To get to the roots of the grass 
that far back of the ball and have much speed the 
club must be brought down vertically, with the 
face of the club pointing well away from the ball. 
When that point is reached the club must be 
forced with great rapidity around so that the bot- 
tom edge of the club will cut the grass off at the 
roots and meet the ball square. This turn will 

234 



THE MIDIRON 

be greatly facilitated by the action of the grass 
which winds around the shank of the club, due to 
the fact that the club shaft is pointing at the 
ground at an angle of about fifty degrees. 

This is one of the cases where drawing in the 
hands and getting a slice is a decided advantage, 
because, as you were coming down so straight, 
drawing in the hands prevents the club going too 
deep into the ground and thus wasting the effort, 
and as the ball is shot out of the grass it has the 
usual twist given by the club drawing across 
the ball. This twist is emphasized by the drag of 
the grass upon the under side of the ball as it comes 
out and forward. The result is that you get a ball 
which comes out quickly, but which ducks quite 
sharply and shoots forward with a tremendous 
roll when it strikes the ground. In moderately 
heavy rough grass it is possible for the average 
player to get one hundred and fifty to one hun- 
dred and seventy-five yards if the stroke is played 
correctly. 

To gain a simple mental picture of the stroke 
the player should imagine that he is playing a 
regular midiron shot on the fair green, down hill, 

235 



GOLF 

on a very steep incline and is trying to drive the 
ball along the ground by aiming about four inches 
back of the ball in order to be "down" when he 
reaches it. If the grass is very heavy it will be 
possible to get a very fair ball away by empha- 
sizing the slice by turning the face of the club 
away to the right of the hole and aiming an equal 
distance to the left to allow for the slice which 
results. The whole success of the stroke depends 
upon pounding the club down hard into the turf 
back of the ball. Don't be afraid of your club 
shaft and hit hard. 



236 



USE OF THE MASHIE 



CHAPTER XVI 

USE OF THE MASHIE 

IT is with real pleasure that I take up the 
mashie shot, because the mashie is my favor- 
ite club, if favorite there can be, as I have 
devoted more time and study to the shot than all 
others. It is a club which has vast possibilities, 
and is called upon to play a greater range of shots 
than all the other clubs combined. At the same 
time it is understood by comparatively few play- 
ers, and even among the professionals I have 
heard some mighty funny theories advanced as 
to the way it should be played. From what I 
have observed, the majority of professionals play 
the club correctly from practice and in spite of 
their theories. 

To look at the club and note the angle or loft 
to the face of it, the theory of the correct method 
of playing it may seem, simple, but it is not a 
simple club to play according to the theory. The 

239 



GOLF 

fact that almost every player you see addresses 
his ball with the club shaft at right angles to the 
desired line of flight shows that his mental picture 
of the stroke must be that also, or he would not 
so address the ball. The idea is that the ball 
takes the angle of the face of the club, as I show 
by dotted line called the angle of rise. Players 
have informed me that they can play off a 




board floor that way, and it must be correct. It 
is correct for a board floor, because the club can- 
not go too low and is bound to slide along the 
floor, but for soft turf and grass, it is not the 
easiest way. 

The latitude for error is too small and the 
amount of latitude is shown by the small arrow 
marked A. In proportion to the width of the 
club face, this is a very small margin, something 

240 







<^% 



****- ^ 














Address With the Mashie for the Squeeze Shot. The 

Lowest Point in the Swing Is Opposite the 

Pivotal Center and Ahead of the Ball. 



USE OF THE MASHIE 

like a quarter of an inch of space, into which the 
wedge formed by the bottom of the club must be 
driven to hit the ball accurately, to avoid topping 
and cutting it, on the one hand, and to avoid 
driving the wedge at the bottom of the club into 
the ground, on the other. 

The bottom edge of a mashie is very sharp, 
and it is expensive, to say the least, to top the 
ball or even half top it. You can readily see 
what the effect would be to strike the ball in the 
middle with this club. Besides this, to drive that 
sharp wedge into the soft turf is wasting the 
force of the blow upon the ground and not the 
ball. This very fact is one which is productive 
of one of the most useful shots with the mashie, 
as I shall explain in another place, but the shot 
is not played with any idea of the club moving 
in the arc shown by the dotted line marked C. 

The theory of the shot as I have drawn it is 
rendered still more difficult and almost impossible 
by players who seem to think they must get under 
the ball and hit up, applying the power to push 
the ball up along the line of the angle of rise, at 
right angles to the face of the club. Even with 

241 



GOLF 

this theory of play the arc of the club head should 
be very flat in order to hit the ball, but nine play- 
ers out of ten do not try for the flat arc. At 
the last moment when they meet the ball they 
lift the club by turning the wrists up in order to 
get the ball up or "lift" it, their idea being that 
in order to get the height the club must come up 
with the ball along the solid line marked D. 

With this theory the club must sweep through 
the arc shown by dotted line C, but even then the 
latitude for error is so small that it is very, very; 
difficult to bring any kind of a shot off with cer- 
tainty, and the amount of spoiled mashie shots 
is shown in the scores of the high handicap men. 
In addition to this the player has no such hitting 
surface to use as the width of the club face might 
indicate. In reality he has only the width shown 
by the dotted line B, and that is narrower than the 
face of his cleek. 

I have drawn three views of the club and ball 
in order to show what takes place during the short 
interval of time when the club is against the 
ground. In the first place I direct attention to 
position 1 to show how much more latitude for 

242 



USE OF THE MASHIE 



error is given by hitting down instead of parallel 
with the ground, as in the average player's theory. 
By referring to the solid line marked A, you will 
observe that you have a space nearly as wide as 
the club head in which to hit with the bottom 
edge of the club and still get off a very fair shot. 
This is about four times as much leeway as you 



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7-7T 




have in the other scheme. In order to have the 
club coming down and the shaft pointing at the 
angle it is, the hands must be ahead of the ball. 
To give a simple explanation of this way of 
playing the shot, just imagine you are playing 
on the same theory you have been, and instead 
of taking the usual stance, take a position as 
though the ground under your left foot was to 
sink down six inches. Then you will pick off the 

243 



GOLF 

ball in the same way, but your club will go into 
the ground after you hit it instead of starting 
to rise from the ground the instant you hit the 
ball. As the club meets the ground the tend- 
ency of the head of the club is to turn away 
to the right. This must be overcome by turning 
the club face in more than you are accustomed to 
by turning the wrists over harder when you meet 
the ball. You will find that your ball goes a 
little more to the left than you have been used 
to, but by facing the club more to the right, as 
shown in position 1, this is easily overcome. Then 
when the ball is struck the club head moves along 
almost parallel with the angle of rise and you 
have no need of hitting so hard, because you are 
tilting the face of your club at an angle equiva- 
lent to the loft on a midiron. 

This is the simplest shot with the mashie, be- 
cause it gives the greatest amount of leeway, and 
does not require such accuracy as does the average 
player's theory. It is as though the ball were 
teed up when you strike at it, with more room 
to get under it. By facing the club to the right 
in the address the face comes at perfect right 

244 



USE OF THE MASHIE 

angles to the desired line at the instant the ball 
leaves it, as shown in position 2. In order to be 
sure of this the hands must be turned hard, or 
the club will feed too deep into the turf, killing 
the distance and spoiling the direction. This shot 
enables the player to strike with more confidence 
and freedom, which is much to be desired. The 
purpose in the player's mind must be to drive 
the ball down along the same line as shown by 
the dotted line running from the center of the ball 
in position 1. Never give a thought to the ball 
getting up or you will start to turn the wrists 
up and spoil the shot. 

In every iron shot the purpose in the player's 
mind must be to hit down if he is going to get 
the ball up. The club will take care of the rise. 
If you do not have that purpose in your mind 
you will top your shot nine times out of ten. 
By noting the incline of the club shaft you will 
see that the hands must not be stopped when 
your club reaches the ball, but must sweep along 
with the club. Also there should be a good deal 
of a drag in the shot, with the left elbow pointing 
out at the flag and the right hand pushed forward 

245 



GOLF 

with the hand bent backward very much. As 
such details, however, are apt to be confusing, I 
recommend that the player make his club head 
act as shown in the cut, and thrash out his own 
method of doing it. The important thing is to 
keep the club in contact with the ball, because 
that is what affects the ball's flight. 

Players are apt to be so much impressed by 
another player's swing that they lose sight of the 
vital point, which is the way the club head meets 
the ball and acts while in contact with it. Do 
not hit hard, and above all else fix your attention, 
after you have mapped out your purpose, upon 
keeping your head absolutely still, and you will 
become in a short time a first-class mashie player. 

An important shot with the mashie is the high 
pitch. In offering my method of playing this 
shot I know that it differs from the usual theory 
in that I put no "cut" or back spin upon the ball 
whatever. I have found from experience that I 
can get the ball up quicker or at a more acute 
angle by my scheme than by the so-called "cut 
stroke," which is supposed to put a back spin 
upon the ball and stop it quickly. I have made 

246 







Address With Mashie for Squeeze Shot. Note That 

the Lowest Point in the Swing Will Be 

Ahead of the Ball. 



USE OF THE MASHIE 

two drawings showing the principal stages of the 
club head and ball, and from them it will be 
seen that the angle of the club face is directly 
contrary to the usual idea, in which the club face 
is "laid back" or tilted with a still greater angle 
than that with which it was built. The prevailing 



idea is to get under the ball and hit up. The 
principle in my method is to drive my club head, 
which is built like a wedge at the bottom, into the 
ground behind the ball in order to push up the 
ground upon which the ball is resting, and it is 
the combination of the two forces, one propelling 
the ball and turf forward, and the other driv- 
ing the club down, which gives the desired rise to 
the ball. In the diagram, position 1, you will see 

247 



GOLF 

that the first effect of the club meeting the ball is 
to put a back spin upon it, but that is instantly- 
stopped by the brake being applied by the turf 
and the result is a reaction, emphasizing the tend- 
ency of the ball to come up straight in the air. 
As the turf slides up the face of the club, as 
shown in position 2, the ball is pushed up with it 
while both the turf and the ball are being driven 
forward by the general direction in which the 
club head is traveling. 

By noting position 3 in the diagram you will 
see that the ball is rising at a greater angle than 
the angle of the club face, due to the fact that the 
turf is sliding up over the club face as the club 
head is driven deeper and forward and the ball is 
pushed up and forward with it. As the turf is in 
contact with the ball during the entire time that 
the energy is being transmitted, it effectually 
prevents any spin being imparted to it. The ball 
goes away on its flight without any eccentric mo- 
tions and when it lands it bounces straight in the 
direction it is 'being propelled, and does not have 
the tendency to kick off to one side, which a ball 
with back spin does. In other words, I do not 

248 



iTJSE OF THE MASHIE 

slice the ball at all, it has no tendency to duck, 
and it will stop quicker than any "cut stroke" I 
have ever seen. It allows for three or four times 
as much leeway for error, requires no delicate tim- 
ing as does the other method, and is simple to play 
in consequence. Every good professional golfer 
I have seen plays the shot in this way, and they 
take a good big divot the full width of the club 
face. 

The confidence necessary to pound the club 
down into the ground in a contrary direction to 
that in which you wish to send the ball will come 
quickly if the player will think of the club head 
plowing along under the turf upon which the ball 
is resting. Of course a reasonable amount of 
care must be exercised to avoid meeting the turf 
too far back of the ball; about half an inch to 
an inch is the proper distance, according to the 
amount of rise required and the distance forward 
you wish to send it. To make the shot success- 
fully do not attempt to turn up the wrists when 
your club is in the turf, but, on the contrary, 
turn the hands over — as in all the iron shots — as 
though you were trying to push the toe of the 

249 



GOLE 

club deeper into the ground. Also play the shot 
as though it were the divot you were trying to 
play forward and not the ball. This will enable 
you to "follow through" correctly. Do not spare 
the turf, and remember that you never see a pro- 
fessional break a shaft, although he takes a much 
larger divot than you do as a rule. Strike firmly 
and freely, and spare not. 

In regard to the stance with the mashie, I have 
tried every conceivable method, and I am con- 
vinced that the best scheme is to study the ball 
more and the flag less. The first glance at the 
flag will tell you as much as fifteen minutes gaz- 
ing at it; the balance of the time occupied in 
making the stroke should be devoted solely to the 
space occupying about a yard circle in which you 
are standing with the ball in front of you. Bad 
direction does not come from a faulty study of 
the line, but from faulty connection between the 
club head and the ball. It is really astonishing 
how the player unconsciously sends his ball off 
on the correct line when he hits it perfectly 
true. 

Common sense should tell you that you cannot 

250 



USE OF THE MASHIE 

watch the line and the ball at the same time. The 
purpose in taking the stance is to give you gour 
direction. How seldom you see an amateur rely 
upon that, however. He takes his stance and 
then commences to tire his eyes and muscles by a 
further study of the direction. Once you take 
your stance you should never again think of the 
direction. One more glance to gage the distance 
and then everything should be devoted to hitting 
the ball true. Have more confidence, and the 
best way to get that is to acquire experience and 
familiarity with the "feel" of a correctly hit ball. 

All the careful study of line and distance is lost 
in any case when you do not hit true, and fifty 
shots are spoiled by not hitting true to one which 
is off direction as a result of lack of study of 
the line. It is the way your club head meets the 
ball which affects the flight and not the way your 
shoulders are acting or your hands or a hundred 
other things are behaving. Forget all those 
items and think only of keeping your head still 
when you are swinging at the ball. 

Do not spend so much time in studying the 
nature of the ground between the cup and your- 

251 



GOLF 

self or where you must drop the ball or anything 
of that sort. Look at the flag and gage the dis- 
tance and then hit your ball to go that distance. 
The club hitting the ball true will take care of all 
the trouble between you and the cup. Bunkers 
are really more of a mental than a physical haz- 
ard, because if you hit your ball true and for the 
correct distance the bunkers might just as well 
not exist, as far as affecting the flight of the ball 
is concerned. If a good player could exchange 
his knowledge with a poor player the latter would 
be astonished at the few things which he has to 
observe to bring off his shot. If I could con- 
vince players that keeping my head absolutely 
still was the secret of bringing off shots which 
look mighty difficult, they would be dissatisfied 
with its simplicity and begin to create new mental 
hazards, because they are apparently anxious to 
make the game as difficult as possible. 

I presume every player who has mastered a 
certain difficult shot has laughed in his sleeve 
when his less skilful mates have marveled at his 
cleverness. Let them think it is cleverness and 
don't tell them that hitting the ball true did all 

252 




Address With Mashie for "Picked" Shot. 



USE OF THE MASHIE 

the difficult work. "A pit full of starving 
bears," as I read in a humorous article some time 
ago, is only a mental hazard and cannot possibly 
affect a well hit ball. 

The most difficult hazard in golf is the desire 
to swing hard. 



253 



WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 






CHAPTER XVII 

WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 

THE jigger is a cross between a midiron 
and a mashie, with nearly the range of 
the midiron and nearly the capacity for 
raising the ball which the mashie has. The prin- 
ciple of playing it is identically the same as with 
the other iron shots. Turf should be taken after 
meeting the ball. The idea is to strike so as to 
drive the ball against the ground, and the club 
will keep on into the turf, but the ball will be 
pushed up or bounced up by reason of the impact 
with the ground. I have explained in previous 
chapters why this method of playing irons not 
only will give greater distance but far greater 
accuracy of line. In addition to this, it is prac- 
tically hitting a teed ball every time. 

If a ball is on an upward incline it is easy to 
hit it clean with the club, and if the purpose in 
the player's mind is to drive the ball against the 

257 



GOLF, 

ground it brings all the effort in a similar direc- 
tion, just as though the ball was teed, or was 
resting upon an upward incline. By referring 
frequently to the illustrations I have made in 
previous chapters it will become clearer and 
clearer to the player what that method of playing 

the stroke will accomplish. 

The vast majority of so-called jiggers are mis- 
nomers. Generally they are distorted mashies. 
They have not the hitting surface of the mashie, 
yet they have the same "loft." A true jigger 
should have nearly the incline which a midiron 
has, but a narrower blade, in order to have the 
bulk of the weight well below the center of the 
ball to emphasize its tendency to make the ball 
rise. It should really give a much longer ball 
than a mashie is capable of if played with the 
same amount of effort. The player should re- 
member that his club should propel the ball down 
against the ground. The ball will bounce back, 
while the club continues along practically the 
same line. This is how turf is taken after hitting 
the ball. This is really the only club with which 
it is comparatively easy to pick a ball off hard 

258 



WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 

surface or sand. The broad base prevents it feed- 
ing too deep into the turf or sand, and a very 
long ball is possible. The majority of jiggers 
are laid back too much and do not allow of a 
sufficient additional distance with the same effort 
you would make with the mashie. 

For low running-up shots where it is desired 
to "kill" the run on the ball the jigger is much 
easier to play than the mashie, but as it always 
requires greater skill to play any stroke with a cut 
to it than a plain running shot, I very much pre- 
fer the midiron, as the same amount of skill will 
give much finer results. The amount of "kill" 
or drag depends very largely upon the nature of 
the ground upon which the ball lands, and I have 
found from experience that I get better average 
results with the midiron. 

The high pitched shot with a niblick is as useful 
if not more useful than the high pitch with a 
mashie, not only because it is possible to get the 
ball up much more quickly, but that very fact 
means that it will come down straighter, meeting 
the ground more nearly at right angles and con- 
sequently stopping quicker. Many players seem 

259 



GOLE 

to think that a niblick should be played only in 
traps or difficulties, and that it looks unskilful to 
use a niblick on the fair green. 

In my own case I always try for the easiest 
way to play a shot, and I find that I can get 
results with a niblick for pitched shots up to 
ninety yards that I cannot get with my mashie. 
With the turf in good shape I can drop a fifty- 
yard pitch practically dead, and this I cannot do 
with certainty with the mashie. The mashie gives 
me more distance than I need when I have occa- 
sion to get it up quickly. Say that you have 
about forty yards to go to the flag and two-thirds 
of the distance away there is a bunker and trap 
guarding the hole, and you cannot play a pitch 
and run shot because you are landing on a smooth 
green with the flag too near to hold it; this is 
where the shot with the niblick comes in very 
well. 

The swing is made very vertically with the 
hands well ahead of the club head, and the pur- 
pose in the player's mind must be to drive the club 
head deep into the ground close behind the ball, 
with the idea of playing the divot up to the 

260 



WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 

flag. You are really driving a wedge down close 
behind the ball, and as the thicker part of the 
wedge meets the ball, which has already started 
nearly straight up in the air (due to the small 
end of the wedge pushing the turf up under the 
ball), it is propelled forward, but as the ball is 
already in motion the bulk of the force of the 
blow is sending the ball up and not forward. 
There is practically no back spin on the ball, and 
the reason it stops dead short is that it comes 
down so straight. 

The player should think only of the wedge go- 
ing into the turf because it is the sharp impact 
of the club meeting and displacing the turf which 
sends the ball away rather than the direct blow 
of the club head upon the ball. Do not be afraid 
of taking a big divot and getting well under the 
roots of the grass. Follow through, but let it 
be well into the ground. 

You cannot get over ninety yards, and it is 
wiser not to attempt even that distance until you 
have mastered the shot. You strike the ball with 
a very glancing blow and the turf stops the back 
spin and emphasizes the quick rise. As you play 

261 



GOLF 

the shot, be even more particular to Hit firmly 
and freely, and on no account allow yourself to 
look up. The stroke is played with the hands 
pretty well down, with the left arm kept well 
down at all stages, and the principal movement 
in the wrists. The farther back of the ball you 
hit, the more the rise to the ball is emphasized, 
but the shorter the distance forward the ball will 
go. It will pay to cultivate this shot, as the 
player will find many occasions where it will be 
extremely useful. 

When I play this shot, I take a divot about an 
inch thick and seven to twelve inches long, with 
a great deal of earth coming out with the grass. 
Hit freely and firmly. 

It sometimes happens in golf that you find 
your ball in a sand trap behind a bunker with the 
green on the other side. It is a shot that can He 
played with accuracy and precision if the player 
gets the correct idea. The basic idea in this shot 
is to come down very sharply and drive the bottom 
of the club deep down and well below the ball, 
treating the shot as though the ball were not 
there at all and you were trying merely to play 

262 



WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 

about as much sand as you can get your club 
head into the distance you desire to go. Aim at 
least the width of the club head behind the ball 
and hit freely and firmly, remembering to follow 
through in order to throw the sand at the point 
you want to reach. There is no delicacy required. 
Give a good stiff poke and the ball will go as 
far as a piece of gravel would and not much more. 

It is the sand you are playing to the cup and 
not the ball. Any attempt to strike the ball with 
the club head will spoil the shot. Hit down sharp 
and when you get into the sand push ahead hard. 
You are really gouging out the amount of sand 
your club head will hold and jerking it over the 
bunker. I stand well ahead of my ball with my 
left knee bent considerably in order to pull the 
club forward instead of pushing it forward, as it 
is easier and you can get a much greater amount 
of the body into the stroke. In clean, dry sea 
sand it is possible to send a ball well up in the 
air and for fifty yards forward. 

The reason for the failure of the majority of 
players in this shot is that they think they must 
strike the ball with the club. Do not look at the 

263 



GOLF 

ball at all. Gage about the width of the club 
face back of the ball and hit down hard and 
straight into the sand and then yank the club 
forward and you will not only get out and over 
the bunker, but a little practice will enable you 
to place the ball very close to the pin. You must 
hit just as hard as you would in playing a hun- 
dred yards on the fair green, but be careful not 
to hit too near the ball. 

This is a shot which is well worth the time de- 
voted to practicing it and it is the despair of a 
competitor who is counting that hole as won. I 
have seen players not only get a half by playing 
this shot well but often to win the hole, as the 
recovery so rattled their opponent. 

It is not my purpose to enter into more detailed 
shots with this club, such as "lofting a stymie' ' 
or "cut strokes," or any similar shots, for the 
reason that such shots are only within the com- 
pass of the advanced player and the relative im- 
portance of them for the average player is not 
great. Learn any of the shots I have indicated 
and the others will be well within your range. 

Do not have the foolish idea that your niblick 

264 




Address With Xiblick for Squeeze Shot. 




Following Through in the High Pitch Shot With 
Niblick. Keep the Eyes on the Ground. 




Using the Niblick in a Bunker. Play the Sand 
Rather Than the Ball. 




The High-Pitched Shot With the Xiblick. Don't Be 
Afraid to Bend the Shaft. 



WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 

should only be used when in "trouble." Many 
a pitched shot is a simple pitch with a niblick 
which would be a very difficult shot with the 
ordinary mashie. Many players have the same 
amount of "loft" or incline to the face of their 
mashie that they have on their niblick; there is 
no sense in this because it gives you insufficient 
range between the two shots. Make a practice 
of using the club which will accomplish the de- 
sired result in the easiest manner. If you are 
compelled to pitch a ball high on a short shot 
and stop very quickly when you land, use your 
niblick. The shot is far easier than with the 
mashie. 

Remember that if the high pitched shot which 
I have described is to be played a short distance, 
you must hit down with the same amount of 
effort you always use, and allow only that you 
should hit a little farther back of the ball. The 
same swing you are accustomed to use when strik- 
ing the ground farther back will net less distance 
but will give you a good high ball which will stop 
quickly. In your scheme of play you can get 
better average results from swinging in an accus- 

265 



GOLF 

tomed manner and with the same amount of 
effort. 

A fact which may help some is that the time 
occupied in a short shot in swinging through the 
lower part of the arc of the circle should really 
be longer than when swinging the same distance 
with a full swing. The idea is to lift the club 
up a certain height and then let it come down 
mostly with its own weight. The reason that 
many players fail is that they look up too soon, 
and this is a natural result. The effort on the 
player's part has ceased, and he will always look 
up in spite of himself the instant he completes 
his main effort or purpose. As the purpose with 
the average player is to propel his ball, the instant 
he ceases to exert his muscles in propelling his 
club he looks up to see the result of his effort. 
As the effort is or should be, on a short shot, 
to lift the club only, he must have absolute mas- 
tery of himself if he is to avoid raising his eyes 
before the club head reaches the ball on its down- 
ward sweep, which is the result of letting the 
club come down with its own momentum. 

To bring this home to your own case, take a 

266 



WITH JIGGER AND NIBLICK 

dozen balls and try out the idea of pitching the 
ball, say twenty yards, with a niblick and it will 
astonish you how difficult it is to wait long enough 
to see the club head meet the ball with its own 
momentum. 

The club should be held loosely and with the 
idea of feeling the natural balance of the club 
and not to make any effort to increase the speed. 
Guide it accurately and keep at it until you can 
see the club head meet the ball. This will be a 
valuable object lesson, not only in playing the 
niblick, but in playing a short shot with any club 
in the bag. It is difficult, mighty difficult, and 
yet it is the only successful way to play the shot. 



267 



ON THE PUTTING GREEN 



CHAPTER XVIII 

ON THE PUTTING GREEN 

WHEN it comes to putting I expect 
that every man who reads this will 
feel that here at least I am going to 
touch upon a subject which he is as well qualified 
to solve for himself as any one. I believe I have 
missed more foot and two foot putts than any 
living man who has played golf the same length 
of time, and what I have to say about this stroke 
is based upon more careful and general experi- 
ence than any one I have met thus far. I have 
little doubt that my views may not parallel those 
of many good putters, but I know that the plan 
I pursued so persistently for eight years was the 
reason for my erratic putting. 

Right at the start I state flatly that putting is 
not a matter of nerve or will power at all, 
although I know that this opinion is directly con- 
trary to the views I hear most often. Bitter 

271 



GOLF 

experience has been my teacher and I purpose to 
stick to my opinions. I changed in a year and 
a half from a most erratic putter to a very con- 
sistent putter and I know the reason why. If 
nerve or will power would have holed putts for 
me I should never have missed a putt. I simply 
worked from a false theory. I have putted as 
well in critical matches as I ever putted in my 
life, and I have putted as abominably in a friendly 
round as I ever did in a critical match. I did 
what I have preached against so much, and that 
is "stiffened" my muscles. I made the game 
hard for myself. 

My theory was to reduce the art of putting 
to an exact science by some method of controlling 
the club which would make it impossible to go 
wrong. The club would have to go that way, 
and it was a physical impossibility for it to go 
any other way than that which I intended. I 
putted the two extremes all the years I tried 
that idea ; brilliantly at times and horribly at 
other times ; worse than a man who never played 
the game before in his life. The putt with me 
was built upon an entirely different basis than 

272 





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1&* — m 






5 


wS^^Ejy* 


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^^^H^^r 









ON THE PUTTING GREEN 

all the rest of my game*. I "set" my muscles 
as one would try to guide a car on wheels along 
a track, in such a fashion that I couldn't move 
the club except upon such and such a line. It 
was all wrong. 

I kept my head still, absolutely. My grip of 
the club was correct. My stance was correct. 
My line was studied out with such care that I 
could not be mistaken. My club face was squared 
to the thousandth part of an inch. My eyes 
were glued upon the ball. Yet I missed short 
putts in a heart-breaking manner. To my mind 
it requires far more nerve and courage to keep 
on trying hard, hole after hole, knowing you 
have missed these baby putts, than will ever be 
required to hole one. 

The basis of good putting, as with any other 
kind of shot, is in absolute relaxation of the 
muscles in order that they may have perfect free- 
dom and play. The instant you "set" yourself 
in your address when putting, in any way where 
it requires you to brace yourself to keep your 
balance, that instant you are inviting disaster. 
It will "get you" sooner or later, and when you 

273 



GOLF 

get off your putt it will take you a long time 
to come back. You are reducing your chance 
of keeping your eye on the ball till the club 
reaches it to about five per cent of what it should 
be and it is almost impossible to keep from look- 
ing up too soon. 

To be sure, every one will putt well at times by 
any old method, but of this one fact you may be 
sure, when you are putting well you are putting 
easily and freely and your confidence is great. 
The moment you miss an easy putt your anxiety 
causes you to become more careful and you be- 
come more tense and brace yourself more care- 
fully to avoid missing the next time; you "set" 
yourself more and more as your putting gets 
poorer, until finally you couldn't hole a yard putt 
into a bushel basket with anv confidence. 

I have changed putters and my stance and 
done everything under the sun to improve my 
putting when I have reached these stages, and 
neglected the one thing which was responsible 
for the damage, and that was to loosen up, hold 
myself flabby and limp, and putt so that my 
muscles were as loose and free as they^ were 

274 



ON THE PUTTING GREEN 

intended to be. I have gone to the oculist even, 
and spent a five-dollar bill to see if faulty vision 
was not responsible for my plight, only to be 
informed that my vision was as perfect as it could 
possibly be. Back I would go to the golf course 
to master this part of the game if I never accom- 
plished another thing. I would putt for hours 
at a time and try every method which could be 
thought of but the right one. 

The correct way was too easy for me to see it. 
I had at one time eleven putters in my locker. 
I know every form and make of putter inti- 
mately. I have had experience and plenty of it, 
and I sincerely trust no golfer will ever have to 
go through the bitter experience I have been 
through to learn to putt. When I have a critical 
putt to hole now I laugh to myself to think how 
such a putt has worried me in the days gone by. 
I know now, but I didn't then. 

As I say, my idea in putting for many years 
was that if I "set" every muscle in my body 
rigidly and allowed only my wrists or arms, as 
the case might be, to move, and to so "set" my- 
self that they could move only in a certain defined 

275 



GOLF 

way, I could reduce the art of putting down to 
an exact science. The principle involved was to 
so hold and swing the club that it would move as 
though it were moving along a groove, and it 
would be bound to send the ball upon the correct 
line. 

The fallacy of such a theory was not so ap- 
parent, because after an hour or two of practice 
I could putt with great accuracy. I had so 
trained my muscles that they would act only in 
a well-defined manner and I would putt well for 
a few days, sometimes for a week or two at a 
time, but once I lost the gage of the shot I was 
as helpless as a baby. I would at such times try 
every possible stance and angle, and for years I 
could not seem to get out of my head that I was 
not "slicing" the ball, while every one would in- 
sist that I was. I would practice to overcome it, 
and my friends would tell me I had succeeded. 
By constant and careful attention I would putt 
and putt, and gradually get to a point where I 
would be able to hole the ball regularly from 
good distances, and as my confidence came I 
would putt more and more freely, and naturally 

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ON THE PUTTING GREEN 

would relax more and more as my confidence 
grew and my putting improved. 

It never came home to me that it was the re- 
laxing of my painstaking rigid method of play- 
ing which was causing my improvement and not 
the perfecting of my method as I then believed 
it to be. 

I would try, and did try, for months at a time, 
the stance and style I saw the different profes- 
sionals use whose style appealed to me. I would 
talk to them and attempt to analyze the secret 
of their success, and it would seem to me that I 
had at last found the real secret because after 
much painstaking effort I would begin to putt 
well. In every case, as I look back upon it, the 
success of the scheme was due solely to the fact 
that constant practice was making me swing 
more freely and naturally and consequently re- 
laxing my muscles more and more. 

I am satisfied that I have nailed the really im- 
portant secret of good putting, and that is to 
eliminate every item, from the moment I walk 
up to my putt, which in the slightest degree has 
a tendency to make me "set" my muscles in any 

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GOLF 

way. For the past two years I have putted con- 
sistently and well, in spite of the fact that I have 
had no time for practice. 

I have tried standing in the address at va- 
rious angles, sometimes putting off the right 
foot, sometimes off the left foot, and sometimes 
standing square, the only idea in my mind being 
that of holding myself as loosely and flabbily as 
I could and keep my balance, and it works 
equally well at any angle. I have had critical 
putts to hole, and down they went with delightful 
frequency. The approach putts would inva- 
riably be closer than anything I had ever done 
before with any regularity. I never did "set" 
my muscles much in the other shots, and for years 
my game at other parts totally outclassed any- 
thing I could do with the putter. 

Many players with whom I have played have 
remarked at the way my other shots outclassed 
my putting. In justice to myself I can say that 
I putted as badly at times in friendly rounds as 
I have ever done in matches. I have played 
against good golfers, and beaten them, who have 
thought I was a good putter and had plenty of 

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ON THE PUTTING GREEN 

"nerve." I have played other good players who 
have thought I had no "nerve" at all. The only 
difference has been that if I was putting well 
and had the gage I would putt well no matter 
whom I played, and if I was "off" my putt all 
my will power and determination were only em- 
phasizing the cause of my bad putting, and that 
was "setting" my muscles. 

For the encouragement of those players who 
have been inclined at times to think they lacked 
"nerve," I can say that it is probably more the 
"setting" of the muscles than lack of courage 
that puts them off in their putting. The average 
man has the average courage, and give him a 
reasonable chance of knowing what to do he 
can do it. Older men and youngsters can putt 
because they don't care. They go at the cup 
freely and give their muscles their natural play, 
but to the ambitious man this matter of "setting" 
the muscles is a serious one. When it is realized 
that nothing will cause the tension to the muscles 
or "setting" them so much as anxiety, it will 
readily be understood what a field this one item 
will open up. If the player deliberately adopts a 

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GOLF 

style which requires him to brace or "set" him- 
self, he can be sure that he is bound to go off 
his putting, and all the will power in the world 
will not hole the putts, because it makes it very 
nearly a physical impossibility to do so. 

It is unnatural to believe that a man with 
courage in everything else will not display it 
in putting if he has the knowledge of how to putt 
and understands the cause of his failure to do 
so. This is why I say that it is not a matter of 
"nerve" at all, but knowledge of how to do it 
and willingness to give the muscles a chance that 
make a good putter. 



THE END 



28Q 



:v.77-2 



